


If You Only Knew

by ThoughSheBeButLittleSheIsFierce



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Developing Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gay Male Character, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2018-08-22 01:13:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8267296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughSheBeButLittleSheIsFierce/pseuds/ThoughSheBeButLittleSheIsFierce
Summary: Thomas makes a startling discovery upon receiving some possessions of his late mother, which sets to change him and his life at Downton for ever. As he struggles to deal with his past, he also has to deal with his ever increasing feelings for Jimmy, which he knows are not reciprocated.Takes place some time after the incident at the fair but before season 6's nasty episode (trying to avoid spoilers!) Slightly AU, in that some of the character's backgrounds have been altered and some birth dates have been changed- I spent quite a long time trying to work out what years some of the characters would have been born and checked with the facts that I had as much as I could but I've had to alter things a little bit! It shouldn't change things too much!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been waiting for a couple of days to get my email to register for this account so I'm going to start by posting 2 chapters but obviously this won't be the norm!  
> I haven't written fanfiction for about 6 years so hopefully I still know what I'm doing! Any comments positive/negative (but not too horrible!) are very greatly appreciated.

1

 

The package arrived inconspicuously enough; brown paper, slightly crumpled by its journey, a hastily wrapped string around its centre and “Mr T Barrow” written in cursive on the front. Nothing untoward, nothing to suggest the enormity of what lay inside it. Thomas held it for a minute, feeling the bumps and ridges underneath it, perplexed by the mystery package and even more so by the idea that he had actually received something in the post. He quickly set those thoughts aside though as he peeled back the string and paper to reveal the contents and spread them neatly out on his bed. In it there was a small note, three worn out, dog-eared books, the titles of which could barely be read anymore, and a bundle of letters tied together in a neat pile. He unfolded the note:

_“Dear Mr Barrow,_

_Please find enclosed your mother’s possessions, which were at last recovered upon our closure of the asylum._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Dr Frederick Walker”_

Thomas stared at the note for some time, reading it over a few times to make sure he had understood its short meaning. He was slightly taken aback, his mother had died when he was still relatively young, perhaps around 10 years old, he couldn’t be exactly sure- she had spent so much time in institutions in the years leading up to her death that the years had blended together and become a hazy fog. After her death he had received her only smock and a small slightly tarnished locket; he had given the dress away but had stowed the locket in his dresser drawer, he had never thought about her having more possessions than that. His heart leapt suddenly, perhaps he was about to uncover more about his mother than the little information he already had! He hoped so, he barely remembered her now, though if he closed his eyes and thought hard enough he could see her, her black hair in a low bun, her warm chestnut eyes and a smile that radiated from her very soul and made him feel warm and safe. He could hear her voice singing him lullabies as he fell asleep and calling him “my little Tommy”. To Thomas she was an angel.

He didn’t waste any more time, he hastily pulled the letters out from the string and scanned through them, his eyes darting wildly and his fingers trembling slightly.

_“To my darling sister Hettie,_

_I trust this letter finds you well. I do miss you awfully, the house is painfully quiet without you and mama is becoming harder to care for. She asks daily where father is, it seems she has forgotten his death almost entirely now and I have given up in my efforts to explain the situation to her and have succumbed to telling her that he is merely in the garden and will be home soon._

_I hope your new life of servitude is suiting you well and that the family is kind. I did not quite realise their notoriety until I mentioned them to Charlotte who was asking after you in the village and she remarked on their rather lavish estate! I can only imagine the luxuries you have seen!_

_Please do write to me soon, Hettie, I have very few pleasures in life now and hearing from you is but one of them._

_Affectionately,_

_Clara”_

“Clara” Thomas whispered under his breath, the name rang a bell and now he could see why. He ran his finger over her name, this was his aunt, and here she was in black and white, laid out in ink in front of him. He wondered whether she was still alive, whether she knew of his existence, whether she thought of him. He noticed the date written in the right hand corner of the paper, the 12th of July 1888, almost a year before he was born.

He hurriedly flicked through the next dozen letters, silently hoping that there would be some mention of him- that they had still been in contact after his birth. He scanned the top right hand corner of the letters as he brushed past each one until he reached the final one- the 25th of July 1889- a month before he was born. Thomas paused, searching around the bed, hoping that there would be at least one more letter, but he had set the package’s contents out so neatly that there was clearly no mistake; this was the last letter.

_“Dear Hettie,_

It is with a heavy heart that with which I write this letter, however your intentions with your predicament have left me little choice.

You assert that the child’s father will help with his upbringing but I fail to see how you can know this and how that shall even be possible as it is to be born out of wedlock. I fear this man has manipulated you terribly, he has a family of his own already, it is pure greed and lust on his part that has led you astray and left you in this deplorable situation. I urge you reconsider my offer of giving the child to Lizzie and Daniel Cooper, they would be able to provide for the child and no one need ever know that your decency has been compromised.

If you choose to keep the child then I have no choice but to denounce you as my sister, though it pains me to say. Mama and I will not suffer the shame and humiliation for the sin you have chosen to commit, I trust you will understand this, as you know the shock alone could well kill mama in her current state.

I pray you reconsider.

Yours, Clara”

Thomas let out a sharp sigh, it hurt to read those words and to imagine his mother’s turmoil but she had chosen him over her family, she had sacrificed everything for him. He wished he could thank his mother for that now, for loving him enough to make that sacrifice. Thomas felt sure that he could firmly say now that someone had, at least once, loved him and it made him feel odd and happy and lost all at once.

He took a deep breath and leaned backwards, resting his head against the wall behind him. It was a lot to take in. His mother felt more real and more tangible than ever, there was proof in his hands that she existed, he hadn’t dreamt her up, and what’s more was that she had fought to stay with him and had not wanted to give him up. He had an aunt too! Aunt Clara… though he was almost certain she would not like to be referred to as such, like most people it seemed, Clara did not care for Thomas Barrow, even before he had been born.

He closed his eyes and imagined his mother once again, this time with the smooth curve of a pregnancy bump protruding prominently from her torso, he imagined her hands holding the bump lovingly, protecting an unborn Thomas from the outside world and those who wanted to take him from her… wait! Thomas sat bolt upright, his father! His aunt had mentioned his father in the letter! He skim read through the letter again, muttering the words under his breath until he came to the line he sought, _“You assert that the child’s father will help with his upbringing but I fail to see how you can know this”_. A smile evaded his lips; he knew very little about his father, Mrs Hughes had told him on occasion that Hettie had claimed he was a sailor and so their romance had been fleeting and yet deeply romantic. As a child he had tried desperately to imagine this man, he pictured a slightly older looking version of himself, with a moustache and imposing looking muscles formed from years of hard work aboard a ship, but the ideas of his father proved too abstract and he would often end up frustrated and so he had stopped trying to imagine. Yet here on paper was a glimpse of his father, a sliver of information: his father had wanted to help with his upbringing, perhaps then, his father too had loved him! He read on _“…he has a family of his own already…”_ Thomas frowned and bit the side of his thumb anxiously. He had a family? Thomas had not known that and didn’t make him feel particularly overjoyed to think of his conception as the result of a dirty extramarital-affair. He repeated Mrs Hughes words in his head to soothe him “Your mother was quite smitten, she would spend many an hour cooing over how very much in love she was. She scarcely got any work done when they were courting! Quite the distraction!”

Yes, he reminded himself, feeling calmer, they had been in love, he had probably been very unhappy in his marriage and he had found a soul mate in his mother… and yet… How could she know he had a family if he was a visiting sailor? Did sailors even have families? It seemed unlikely if he was constantly at sea… but then how could he offer to help raise Thomas if he was never going to be around? Come to think of it, how had she met a sailor in the first place? They were miles from the coast and even if they had met on a day trip to Scarborough, it was unlikely that they had fallen in love after one meeting… It didn’t make sense, he couldn’t add it up in his mind and it niggled and gnawed at him.

“Why were there not more letters?!” He lamented to himself, if there were more letters then he might have had answers but he found himself with more questions than he had ever had before.

 

“Thomas?” There was a knock at his door and he suddenly became very aware of his surroundings, he felt as though he had been living in a dream like state since he had opened the package and the knock at the door shook him back to reality. “Come in” he said, quickly pushing the contents of the parcel behind him.

“What are you doing lounging about as though you’ve got nothing to do? Carson’ll have your guts for garters if you don’t get downstairs soon!” Jimmy stood in the doorway to Thomas’ room, an expression of mock surprise with a cheeky smile glinting through. Thomas feigned a smile; he was never quite sure how to act around Jimmy anymore since their “incident”, they had agreed of course to be friends and Jimmy had clearly slipped quite easily back into their original set up but Thomas found it harder- he wanted so much to be around him but he didn’t want to accidentally over step the mark and push Jimmy away yet at the same time did not want to find himself being convinced that Jimmy was interested in more than just friendship through his naturally flirtatious mannerisms and he found the whole process quite exhausting. What’s more he now had his own internal dialogue about his mother and his father and his family running rings around his brain.

He glanced at his pocket watch, dammit he was right, Carson would definitely have something to say about his tardiness. His delving into his past would have to wait until his duties were over.

“Ah, right, yes” Thomas sighed, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers, he ushered Jimmy out of the door and shut the door behind them both in an effort not to let his new prized possessions be seen by Jimmy; that would only lead to questions and Thomas was hesitant to grow closer to Jimmy than he already had done and exposing his feelings would definitely do that.

“You ok?” Jimmy asked, a quizzical look on his face as he tracked Thomas’ emotions.

“Yes, yes, fine.” He replied snappily, trying to avoid any further questions, “Come on then.” And he brushed past him towards the stairs.

 

2

It was late by the time Thomas made it back up to his room; he had the usual busy day of comings and goings, running up and down stairs and trying his best to be polite to the Crawleys and keeping up a stony cold persona for the servants so that they would avoid him. He could feel pressure building in his temples and eyelids were heavy but he wanted to properly read through the letters again, he wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed a detail. He wasn’t holding much hope that Clara had revealed much more in her scathing takedowns of her sister’s character though.

He closed the door behind him and exhaled deeply. Pulling his bow tie and jacket off as he made his way over to the bed. He took his time sifting through each letter, trying to read between the lines but there were fewer references to his father or him than he hoped. Most of the letters were filled with drab detail of Clara’s daily chores or village gossip and the occasional remark on something Hettie must have written to her about life at Downton, but nothing that opened any more doors to Thomas’ past.

He picked up the faded books, which sat in a pile next to him. Maybe he would read them and feel some sort of bond with his mother? It was worth a try perhaps. He opened the first one, there was an inscription written on the inside cover in a small scrawled font, _“Dearest Henrietta on your 16 th birthday, love Papa”_. He smiled faintly, he’d discovered another family member it seemed, this was his grandfather beginning to take form out of ink and paper. He knew it was his grandfather’s sudden death in the winter before his mother’s 18th birthday that had triggered her decision to take the position at Downton, in order to provide for her family and ailing mother.

 

Thomas flicked through the opening pages of the gifted book and tried very hard to take the words in and find some interest in their meaning but he soon gave up. Perhaps his taste in reading and his mother’s were quite different. He picked up the second one, this too had an inscription written in another, slightly familiar hand, _“Dearest H, on your 18 th birthday, may your own life's story be as full of adventure and happiness as the books that you read, love Clara”_. Intrigued by the message, Thomas opened this book, he was taken aback by the first page; it was covered in slanted inking, very different to Clara’s looping letters and his grandfather’s scrawl. He read slowly, a lump in his throat- _“I fear my sister does rather overestimate the sort of life I lead in giving me this journal. I can’t say I have much to offer in the way of adventure for the pages of this book but it will at least pass the time I hope…”_ Thomas bit his lip, scared to let himself be happy by this discovery. This was his mother’s journal! Her actual journal, her inner thoughts and feelings written down for him to see! He checked the date written for the entry, “1 st of June 1888”. He breathed deeply to try and steady his nerves and quickly flipped the pages of the journal to check they had all been written on. Each one was covered in his mother’s penmanship, which seemed to dance and shine on the pages. He flipped to the last page “24th of December 1889” was written neatly at the top. Tears sprang to his eyes unwillingly; he would be in this journal! That had been his first Christmas! What would his mother had written about him? What details would she have included about his father? His stomach flipped with excitement and anticipation, his mother felt only a fingertip’s distance away now and with each line he would grow closer to her still.

 

He read each word carefully, as if each were a symbol or a secret code full of meaning, which he might somehow miss. The first few pages of the journal merely outlined his mother’s daily life and though probably rather dull to most people, these descriptions were mesmerising to Thomas. The light from his lamp had significantly dimmed by the time he reached the pages upon which she arrived at Downton Abbey. He smiled to himself as she described her amazement at the _“magnificent courtyard”_ and _“opulent fixtures”_. He stifled a laugh as she began to comment on her fellow servants, most of whom he had never heard of, but a few were familiar: _“Then there is Mr Carson, an unusual man it seems, he is kind enough though the sort of person who seems older than their years and is adoration for the family that we serve is quite startling to say the least!”_

“Not much has changed there, mother,” He smiled to himself “though I’m not quite sure about the kind part”

_“…She introduced me to Mrs Hughes who is a very kindly Scottish lady. She is very warm and friendly and reminds me very much of mama before she became unwell and forgot herself”_

Thomas liked that part, he had often thought of Mrs Hughes as a mother figure and he was glad that she had been kind to his own mother.

_“Our master here is Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, he is supposedly very kind to his staff and the small amount I have seen of him seems to confirm that notion. He has a young American wife, Cora, whom I am yet to meet as she ladyship has travelled back to America for the summer months, though I hear she is really rather personable too.”_

He loved reading her first impressions of everything and how similar they were to his own opinions, which had been formed throughout his childhood and beyond.

He read on through several people’s names, who he didn’t recognise and various long and elaborate descriptions of different rooms, he found himself yawning and glanced at the time- ok, it really was quite late now, he would read one more entry and then he would go to sleep.

_“I have enjoyed such a pleasant evening! Quite unexpectantly I was called to see Lord Grantham after dinner so that he might introduce himself properly! You can hardly imagine how nervous I was! Fortunately though he was a perfect gentleman. He asked about my family and my upbringing and seemed genuinely moved when he heard about the plight of our family after papa’s death. We ended up discussing literature of all things and he showed me his personal library- you have never seen such a collection! He directed me to one of his favourite books and read me a passage, the name escapes me now but it scarcely matters, he has the most beautiful reading voice, so calm and pleasant, I felt as if I could have quite happily fallen asleep listening to him reading! I did not of course- how improper that would have been! He is such a gentleman that he has insisted that I can borrow books from there as I wish and has asked that I come and discuss my thoughts on them when I have finished! How fortunate I am that he is so kind! I feel tonight as though I am walking on air with happiness!”_

 

Thomas set the journal down on the bed, he felt strange after reading the last passage. Lord Grantham had never mentioned his mother before to him, as far as he could remember and yet it seemed they had known each other more than most servants know their masters. Though all this happened almost 30 years ago now, he supposed, and perhaps he barely remembered her, especially with all the new servants that had come and gone in the years since then. He made a mental note to ask Mrs Hughes in the morning about his mother’s friendship with Lord Grantham. Yet as he slipped into his bedclothes and turned out the light, he felt slightly uneasy and couldn’t make out why. Perhaps it had been his mother’s parting line in the entry, _“I feel tonight as though I am walking on air with happiness!”_ Thomas knew exactly what his mother meant by that description; he had felt that way only once himself- the day he had first met Jimmy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas becomes restless and decides to skip to the date of his birth in his mother's journal...

3

 

Thomas woke early the next morning, he had forgotten to close his curtains in the strangeness of the previous night and now the morning’s light was trickling through his window and brushing against his face. Thomas didn’t mind the early wake up call though; in fact he was glad to escape his dreams, which had been a confusing jumble of blurring between memories and things dreamt up from his mother’s writings.

 

In one such dream, which had left him distressed and frustrated, he had been a young boy again and walking in a field with his mother, clasping on to her hand. He had looked up at her face as she had hummed a song gently into the wind and though he could make out the outline of her raven black hair, the blindingly bright sun had blocked out her features. Then when he had looked back at the field it had transformed into a maze, the walls of which had been made out of austere grey brick. He had looked to his mother for reassurance and she had simply ushered him forward, letting go of his hand. He hadn’t wanted to go but she kept smiling and encouraging and then he turned again and she had gone; vanished completely. He had begun to cry and run desperately around the maze looking for her, crashing into the walls in a wild panic until he had arrived at an opening in its centre. There had stood a man with his back to Thomas and he had instantly known this man to be his father. He had screamed for his father to turn around but no voice had come from his open lips and he had found himself stuck to the spot, trying desperately to reach out to the unwavering figure and yet his father refused to turn.

 

Now awake and relieved to find himself finally in touch once again with reality, Thomas sat up in bed rubbing his eyes. He instinctively looked at his mother’s journal, which lay on the floor next to his bed and sighed. Perhaps it would have been better if the book had never arrived, he thought, he had not given much thought to his mother or any part of his family for a time now and it was not until this re-emergence of his past that he had realised how desperately he had wanted to know someone who he could claim was ‘his’- **his** mother, **his** father… and that was the part that stung anew; his father. Not since he was a teenager had he thought so much about this enigmatic man and now for the first time that he could remember he thought about the possibility that his father might still be alive; and if he was alive then did he think about Thomas? Did Thomas have siblings? Did there exist a set of people out there in the world who could love him? People who would not simply recoil at the sight of him?!

 

Thomas grew frustrated and impatient and snatched the journal from the floor. He no longer wanted to slowly ramble through his mother’s musings, he just wanted to know his father’s name at the very least, and he was tired of waiting. He flicked somewhat furiously through the pages of the book, looking for his date of birth to appear written on one of the pages. His hand stopped suddenly, holding the thick bulk of pages firmly down. His heart beat at such speed that he felt as though it may soon burst out of his chest; there it was.

 

_20 th August 1889_

_Dear Journal,_

_It is so dark right now that I can barely see to write but I just have to make sure that I have today recorded somewhere forever, though I doubt I should ever forget it. I started with stomach pains around lunchtime but didn’t feel too concerned by them as I felt certain that the baby would arrive in September. Regardless, Mrs Marshall sent me upstairs for some rest and within an hour a doctor had been called for as I had gone into labour! It was all very much of a blur after that and I must admit I felt quite panicked by it all, especially when the pain grew worse- I felt quite sure at one point that I might die from the pain of it all but the doctor assured me it was all quite normal! After four long hours my darling son was born! I will tell you quite sincerely and truthfully that now he is here, I would go through that agonising pain again and so much worse just to ensure his safety and wellbeing._

_Oh he is quite possibly the most perfect thing I have ever seen! He already has a head of black hair, quite like my own but he is far more beautiful than I could ever hope to be. He has all of his father’s most handsome features, I can see that already. Even now when I look over to him at this moment as he is sleeping he has a concentrated look upon his face much like Robert’s when he is reading._

_Robert came to see me not yet half an hour after his birth and he was so gentle and kind as he always is. I can tell that he feels for our son the same way I do, that he loves him and would protect him at all costs, just as he promised he would. When I watched him hold the baby in his arms I saw that look of love written upon his face and I no longer felt worried about mine and the baby’s future. I know that Robert will look after us, even if it is not able to be in a conventional way. My heart does of course feel sad that we cannot be the family I had so desired but I would be a fool if I did not realise that Robert has Cora and is duty bound to be with her. Regardless, even if he were not married to her, he moves in different circles to me, ones which I could never possibly hope to enter into. But I am so glad and fortunate that our son will be able to live under the same roof as his father and see him every day, at this point in time there is not much I can ask for._

_I must go now as I am under strict orders to be resting! But I should tell you that Robert and I have named him Thomas Patrick; Thomas after my father and Patrick after Robert’s. I think it suits my handsome boy so well!_

_Goodnight from Thomas and me!_

_H_

Thomas’s hands trembled. He blinked at the page of writing in front of him dumbfounded. He felt a queasy feeling rise from the pit of his stomach. He slammed the book shut and looked around the room. It could not be true. How on earth could it be true? How could he have lived his entire life in this house and not known? He didn’t understand, it made no sense, Robert didn’t treat him like a son- he didn’t even treat him differently to any other member of staff. Why would his mother write that if it were not true? Yes, she had gone mad by the end of her life but that would not have been for another 6 or 7 years after this journal was written and she had been perfectly well then.

 

Thomas stood up from the bed slowly, though his legs were shaking and he felt as though he might fall at any moment. He leaned against his dressing table, gripping the top of the drawers until his knuckles were white, breathing slowly as he tried to make sense of it all. At last he straightened himself up and in doing so caught sight of himself in the mirror. He stopped for a moment and traced the outline of his face with his fingers. Did he look like Lord Grantham? Thomas frowned, how ridiculous, he thought, why was he being so foolish, he was not Lord Grantham’s son! But as he frowned, his mother’s writings popped into his head “… _he has a concentrated look upon his face much like Robert’s when he is reading.”_ Thomas took a shocked step back from the mirror and recoiled. He could see it. He could recognise the furrowed brow and the intense look in his eyes. “No” He breathed unintentionally aloud. He looked frantically around his room, his eyes becoming blurred from tears, he had lived in that room his whole life, he knew its walls inside out, knew every nook and cranny and yet now it looked so different, as though it too had been embroiled in the lie that was his life.

 

He felt in that moment as though he couldn’t breathe, as though the walls, covered in all the lies and secrets, were closing in on him. He quickly threw some clothes on and raced down the stairs and through to the back courtyard of the servant’s quarters. He lent facing forward against the outside wall breathing, his breathing now shaky and rapid.

 

“Mr Barrow? What on earth are you doing out here? You frightened me nearly half to death!”

Thomas looked up to see Mrs Patmore standing in the doorway, hands on hips.

“Well I do apologise, Mrs Patmore, I hadn’t been informed we were no longer allowed outside at will” Thomas spat at her, his hands still holding the weight of his body against the wall in front of him.

She frowned at him, “You’re up to no good again, I can see it in your eyes, are you spying on me?” She demanded, seemingly working herself up into a bit of a state.

“ Yes, Mrs Patmore,” Thomas straightened himself up, fetching a cigarette from his inside jacket pocket “because I cannot simply stand to live my life any further without knowing the secret behind your apple pie” his face completely deadpan as he lit his cigarette and sneered at her as he exhaled. She huffed loudly and opened her mouth to make a retort but gave in and vanished back inside. “Stupid woman,” he thought to himself, “as if I have nothing to worry about other than her boring little life.”

 

He paced the outside space, intermittently taking drags of his cigarette. Inside the abbey he could hear the rest of the servants beginning to wake up. He didn’t want to have to face anyone but he had little choice in the matter. He stubbed his cigarette out on the floor with his shoe and headed back into the house to get ready properly. He decided that he would have to endure the day as normally as he could whilst he tried to make sense of his discovery and decide what to do about it.

 

He was deep in thought as he walked along the hallway to his room where he bumped into Jimmy, who held a washcloth in his hand and was on the way to the bathroom. “Lord, Barrow, I’ve seen corpses look more alive than you!” Jimmy grinned, nudging Thomas’s shoulder as he passed. Thomas tried his best to smile but the expression seemed to fade before it even properly reached his face. Of all the people to bump into when his head was already a mess... “What, no response? Not even a sarcastic retort? Goodness Thomas, are you quite well?” Jimmy joked in mock horror.

“You’ll have to accept my apologies Mr Kent, my unpleasant side is yet to fully wake up.”

Jimmy smiled; glad to have summoned a reaction from Thomas, though he could still sense the uneasy look behind Thomas’s eyes. “Very well, but I expect you to be on top form by breakfast!” Jimmy did his best Carson impersonation, before slinging his towel over his shoulder, seemingly content with himself and proceeded down the hallway.

 

Thomas sighed as he entered his bedroom. The room looked just as it had done before he had left it, in fact everything looked just as it had done for the past ten years at least, apart from his mother’s innocent looking journal lying on his bed.

 

How could everything be so different and yet still the same?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, I feel like this isn't the best writing, please feel free as always to critique/be nice! I really appreciated your comments and kudos on the last chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas struggles to come to terms with his findings

4

 

His hair wouldn’t sit right. Thomas had been standing in front of the small circular mirror which hung in his room for a good fifteen minutes and was still not happy with his appearance. The more he forced his hair back into its usual coiffed style, the less he liked it, which made him increasingly frustrated as he kept catching the sight of his furrowed brows and creased forehead frowning back at him, reminding him of Lord Grantham. “For God’s sake” he muttered under his breath, ruffling his hair back until it fell loosely in front of his eyes and combing it back smoothly again. He clenched his jaw in frustration; it didn’t look right. He glared at his reflection. He could see Robert sneering back at him, he could imagine him looking Thomas up and down and laughing to himself “How did you not know, you fool? And you wonder why I abandoned you? Just look at yourself!” the apparition taunted him. “You really think you could have ever compared to my daughters? You’re half-breed scum!”

“Just shut up, shut up, shut up!” Thomas shouted, punching the mirror with his un-gloved injured hand, until Robert’s face vanished into the shards of broken glass, which scattered across his floor.

 

With the spell broken, Thomas looked around him at the mess. He realised that he had not only broken his mirror, but that he was bleeding from his knuckles and it was almost certain that someone would have heard him shouting. “Thomas? What on earth…?” As if he had been reading Thomas’s mind, Jimmy burst into his room without knocking, his eyes darting from the mirror to Thomas’s hand, concern etched across his face.

“Ever heard of bleeding knocking?” Thomas hissed at Jimmy, hiding his hand behind his back.

“Ever heard of not starting fights with inanimate objects?” Jimmy retorted, having noticed the shards of mirror on the floor laced in Thomas’s blood. He frowned at Thomas though he looked more concerned than angry, which Thomas hated, he didn’t want to be pitied.

“Just leave, would you!” Thomas shouted, embarrassed and in pain.

“Show us your hand and I’ll leave” Jimmy said more softly, edging closer to Thomas, avoiding the broken mirror.

Thomas sighed, realising it was pointless getting into an argument over it and reluctantly produced his hand from behind his back.

Jimmy winced at the sight of it; his knuckles were ragged; a mangle of ripped skin, blood and glass.

“Ok, you’ve seen it, you can go now.”

“Alright, fine… Just let me at least run your hand under the tap or something at least and I’ll leave you alone”

Thomas didn’t want to aggravate things further by suggesting that perhaps a bit of water wouldn’t make much of a difference and so nodded in agreement, besides he wanted to get out of that room which was slowly beginning to feel like it was smothering him.

 

“So what did the mirror say to wind you up so much?” Jimmy asked, the cheeky smile back on his face, as he placed Thomas’s hand under the tepid water of the bathroom sink. His hands held Thomas’s injured hand softly as though he was scared that if he held too tightly it might simply crumble and break. Thomas averted his gaze and instead watched his scarlet blood mix with the water and form a pinkish swirl down the plughole. “Right… fair enough,” Jimmy nodded awkwardly when he realised he was going to get no response from Thomas “my mum always did say I talked too much.”

Thomas was not used to being touched and he didn’t know how to react to the kindness Jimmy was showing him. Part of him wished he could stand there forever, in the freezing cold bathroom, his feet going numb from the tiled flooring, his knuckles stinging as they met the water, just so he could feel the rough warmness of Jimmy’s hands on his; but another part of him knew that he was torturing himself by being so close with a man he still held feelings for and he wished Jimmy would abandon him like everyone else so that he could move on. Feeling overwhelmed and without a word, Thomas abruptly removed his hand from the sink and patted it with a towel, making Jimmy jump slightly. He turned to exit the room, the cloth slowly beginning to seep blood. It absolutely pained him to be distant with Jimmy but their relationship was complicated enough without adding secrets of his identity into the mix.

“I know you probably feel awkward after what happened between us – “ Jimmy called after Thomas, feeling a pang of guilt.

“ – I don’t” Thomas cut him off sharply, turning quickly on his heel to look back at Jimmy from a safer distance.

“Ok, good,” Jimmy sounded unconvinced though “because, I meant what I said, I’d like it if we could be friends” he gave a comforting smile to Thomas in an attempt to repair the situation.

“I know and I appreciate it” Thomas did his best at forcing a smile on his face and raised his injured hand as a gesture of thanks before leaving the room without looking back, leaving Jimmy feeling lost, his hand still on the bloodied sink.

 

\------------------------------------------------------ 

 

“May I assume that your absence at breakfast is for a very good reason and one which will not affect your duties?” Mr Carson was not best pleased by the time Thomas arrived downstairs, though he was rarely pleased with Thomas so it made little difference to his daily routine. Thomas had hastily wrapped some old cloth around the gashes on his knuckles after leaving the bathroom and had then hidden the injury by slipping on his usual leather glove that covered his scarred palm, not wanting to draw anyone’s attention to it.

“You may assume whatever you wish, Mr Carson, I presume you normally do so without the need for my permission” Thomas smiled wryly back at Mr Carson; he heard supressed laughter behind him and turned to see Jimmy sitting at the breakfast table, a cup pressed to his lips to hide his smile, though his eyes flickered as if laughing all by themselves.

Carson scowled at Thomas, “I suggest you go and do your job before I find someone else to do it, someone who does not wish to spend their time attempting to live out depraved fantasies under my nose!” Carson shot a glance at Jimmy as he spoke- he did not shout, there was no need to, his voice was dripping with distain for Thomas as it was.

Thomas bit his tongue; there was no need to draw further attention to himself today. He took the day’s freshly ironed newspaper from Carson and proceeded upstairs to the dining room where the Crawleys would be eating breakfast. He paused outside the door; his exchanges with Jimmy and Carson had almost made him forget the secret that lurked within him. But suddenly a panic swelled within his stomach, making him feel sick. How could he go in there and behave as if everything was normal? How could he look Lord Grantham in the eye? He took a deep breath to try and steady himself. Unfortunately he did not know the answer to either of those questions but he did know that he would not have a job for much longer if he continued to put off entering the room.

 

“Your paper milord” Thomas averted Lord Grantham’s eyes as he set the paper down in front of him. “Ah, thank you, Barrow” Robert clearly noticed no change in Thomas’s demeanour, despite the slight tremble in his voice and his unusual posture. The rest of the family continued to all look content, Cora and Mary were discussing something that Thomas couldn’t quite make out but was making them both smile. He gazed at the opulence of their surroundings and how at home they were all in it. The table was strewn with an assortment of goods that Mrs Patmore had prepared with the help of Daisy and even though there was no special occasion, the crockery that they were using was so ornate that it probably would have totalled Thomas’s yearly wage in price. In that moment he envied Mary and Edith, not particularly for their money or status but for their security and the love that so clearly enveloped them. That could have been me, he thought. It pained him to think how Robert must have chosen the girls and Cora over and above him and his mother. It pained him to see how happy Robert was, despite it all. Whilst still deep in thought he realised he was staring at Lady Mary as she was now glancing at him warily, he quickly darted his eyes away from her but ended up looking again at Lord Grantham, who was intently reading the paper. He wanted so desperately to confront him, to get answers, to know – “Milord…” Before Thomas even realised it was himself speaking, he had opened his mouth and now Robert was turning to look at him. Dear God, what was he doing? “Yes, Mr Barrow?” Robert turned to look at him, he did not look concerned or even vaguely quizzical because he had no idea what was careering through Thomas’s mind. Thomas’s mouth became suddenly very dry to the extent where he thought he might choke on his own tongue. He opened his mouth and closed it again several times in a state of pure panic, “Forgive me, milord, I- I- I must fetch something from Mrs Hughes” Thomas had no idea what he was saying but he needed to desperately get out of that room before he made a grave mistake. Lord Grantham nodded, “Ok, well, right you are” slightly perplexed as to why he needed to be informed of this. Thomas speed walked out of the room, his head down as he felt his cheeks flush. Stupid stupid stupid fool! He thought to himself. He needed time to think before he went in there again, needed to get things clear in his head but he had no idea how to do that.

 

He ran down the stairs back into the servants’ kitchen and almost collided with Mrs Hughes. “Thomas, what _are_ you doing down here?” she sighed, hands on hips, chastising him as though he were a naughty child. “I…uh…I” He had run out of excuses and was too flustered to try and think of more. “Are you not well?” She seemed suddenly very concerned by Thomas’s panicked face, which she was used to seeing either scowling or looking smug. “I’m well, Mrs Hughes, I just…” he paused, falling over his words, “Can I ask you something? About my mother?” He let out a deep breath, as though he had been holding that question inside him for years. “Well I’m not sure that this is an appropriate time! We should both be working-“

“I wouldn’t ask now if it wasn’t important” Thomas pleaded, unable to hide the desperation in his voice which seemed to take Mrs Hughes aback as she looked at him, visibly concerned.

“Go on then, but you best make it quick.”

Thomas let out a sigh of relief and began speaking before he had time to overthink things, “It may sound strange but I need to know, were my mother and Lord Grantham friendly with each other?”

She scrunched up her face as though thumbing through old files of memories in her brain to find the one that would appropriately answer the question. “Yes” She finally answered, her face relaxing, “I dare say they were, especially when your mother first arrived, I would go so far as to say they were friends more so than master and servant”

“But they stopped being friends?” Thomas’s words fell out of his mouth as though he were in danger of exploding if he did not get them out on time.

“Well, they grew apart as people often do, Thomas, nothing too unusual or dark about it” She smiled at him, clearly feeling as though she had put an end to his questions.

“But why?”

“My goodness, Mr Barrow! I don’t know, I didn’t know there would be an examination on the subject!” She smiled as she playfully told him off. Despite all his many faults and much of the behaviour that he displayed that she disagreed with, Mrs Hughes had a soft spot for Thomas which partly came down to having known him since birth.

“Please, just think” His voice was sincere but quiet and faltering and though Mrs Hughes could not understand why, she saw how important the question was to him.

“As I say, I can’t be certain, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say that it was likely after he and Lady Grantham had Lady Mary, you must have been around 2 years old I should think” She talked gently, trying to ease whatever distress it was that Thomas was feeling, “His priorities shifted after that, you know his lordship, he is utterly devoted to his family.” The words stung and cut Thomas like knives of broken glass tearing through flesh but he maintained composure. Clearly thinking she was helping, Mrs Hughes continued, “But he always cared very much for your mother, even after her passing, he was very put out by it and made sure that you were well taken care of.”

 

Thomas stared blankly at her as she smiled at him, “Thank you” he uttered and walked away from her, reaching for his cigarettes. He was left with little uncertainty in his mind now, he was sure of it. Robert had been in a relationship with his mother, maybe even loved her, they had had Thomas together but he had left them both for a life more acceptable to his standards, one with Cora and his three beautiful girls. There was no room in it for Thomas, no, he was rotten to the very core; completely unlovable.

 

_His priorities changed_ , Thomas thought to himself, yes, he stopped loving you when he found something better, just as people always do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, any comments good/bad are greatly appreciated! Really does mean so much to me when people comment/bookmark/give kudos!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas, spurred on by his conversation with Mrs Hughes and an encounter with Jimmy, decides to take action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this has taken me so long to write. A combination of a very busy week and a bit of writer's block!

5

 

Thomas's hands trembled as he attempted to light his cigarette. It was hard to tell at this point what the reason for his shaking was- fear, anger, shock? Or maybe it was just the pain coming from the open wounds on his knuckles, which were sticking to the scraps of cloth he had bound them in.

Finally the cigarette lit and he took a drag, exhaling deeply. His breath collided with the frosty air and formed an icy white cloud that covered his line of vision. He closed his eyes and tried to lose himself behind the smokescreen. If only he could fade to ash too, then he wouldn't have to deal with any of this anymore.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on or what?"

Thomas opened his eyes, the chaotic silence of the courtyard abruptly broken. Jimmy stood directly in front of him. The pale winter sunlight cast a thin veil over his face and even then, with the many millions of thoughts scattered in his head, Thomas could not help thinking how beautiful he looked in that moment but he remained stone faced, "Are you following me, Mr Kent? You seem to be everywhere I turn today" he tried to look nonchalantly beyond Jimmy's head at the sky, to avoid any danger of locking eyes with him, but he could still see him smiling out of the corner of his eye.

"I wouldn't flatter yourself, Thomas" he was clearly amused by the notion of following Thomas around like a lost puppy but there was no malice or ill intent in his voice, "but I can see that there's something wrong."

"I hate to disappoint you but this is simply my personality"

There was a silence before Jimmy stepped purposefully into Thomas's line of vision, he was frowning but looked anything but angry.

It was clear that Jimmy would not relent without a satisfactory answer from him. Thomas sighed, “It’s about my father…” his voice trailed off as he replied, feeling like he had suddenly been punched in the stomach as he said the word ‘father’ finally out loud. Despite Thomas feeling as though he had just confessed something enormous, Jimmy just gave a simple nod and continued to stare at Thomas, an interrogation without using words.

Thomas wanted to cry out of frustration. He did not want to be in this situation. He did not want Robert Crawley as is father and he did not want to lie to the only person left in the world who he cared about. He wanted to fall into Jimmy’s arms sobbing and tell him everything but instead he straightened up, his torment hiding behind its usual hard faced mask. “I-I…I thought he was dead…all this time…but he’s not, he’s alive…just not interested in me I suppose…” Thomas stumbled over his words in a bid to stop his emotions tumbling out.

Finally Jimmy’s face softened, “Well that’s his loss, I’m sure he’d realise that if he met you.”

Thomas could not help but smile, partly due to the kindness Jimmy was showing him but also because of the irony of the words intended to comfort him, “Thank you James, but I know he would disapprove of me” He stubbed out his cigarette, realising it had become redundant in his fingers since Jimmy had appeared.

“He wouldn’t, he’d be proud of you, look at you!” He seemed slightly exasperated as he gestured at Thomas, both men slightly unclear as to whether he was gesturing at his uniform or the man who was clothed in it.

“I fear you are the only person who would think such a thing about someone like me”

“Well then thank goodness mine is the only opinion that matters” Jimmy smiled knowingly. Thomas suddenly became very aware of how closely they were standing to one another, the pointed ends of their freshly polished shoes not even an inch apart from one another and their breaths mingling together seemingly before they could even made contact with the air. Both men lingered in the moment for a fraction longer than was necessary.

“Right, come on, inside, Carson hates us enough as it is” Jimmy said, breaking whatever spell had been cast between them, “But we’ll talk later, alright?” He added, perhaps noticing the shift in Thomas’s expression as they turned to enter the house.

 

Thomas paused in the kitchen once Jimmy had left. Though he had stopped trembling, he could feel his chest and stomach convulsing within him as he remembered that he had to return upstairs. He could not avoid Lord Grantham forever. He took a long deep breath and then pulled tightly on his lapels and cuffs, smoothing out his appearance; he had made up his mind. He walked as calmly as he could back upstairs, quite some time had passed since he had made his hurried exit but the family were still sitting almost exactly as he had left them when he entered the room. Mr Carson, however, was now in the room also and cornered Thomas upon his arrival, “Whatever on earth it is you are playing at must stop immediately, there is to be no more disruption from you today, I will speak with you about this matter later.” Carson, ever devoted to maintaining decorum, did his best to remain quiet and discreet though the deep tones of his voice made it clear to everyone that Mr Barrow was receiving some stern words. Thomas barely acknowledged that Mr Carson had even spoken and instead continued to walk over to the family.

“Milord, might I have a word with you?” although this time Thomas’s words were rehearsed in his head, it made it no less panic-inducing to hear them in his own voice, echoing in the now silent room. Robert looked up from his newspaper, having clearly been deeply engrossed in an article, “Is it a pressing matter? I am really rather busy – “

“It is quite urgent, sir, yes” Thomas cut across Robert, his voice remained sharp and clipped, concealing the panic that was building inside of him. He could see Mr Carson slowly turning a scarlet shade of red, growing indignant at Thomas’s incompetency. Robert raised an eyebrow, “May I ask what this is in regards to?”

Thomas froze for a fraction of a second but quickly regained composure, knowing that if he stalled for too long he would never get the words out, “Regarding my father, sir. I believe you know something about him, which I myself have only just discovered.”

Now it was Robert who froze. The colour seemed to drain from his face instantly and he grew slightly breathless. He could do little but stare at Thomas.

“Milord, please forgive Mr Barrow, I fear he is not well today, he has been acting most peculiarly” Mr Carson marched up towards Thomas, grabbing him roughly by the arm, by now looking incandescent with the rage bubbling beneath the surface.

“No, no, Carson” Robert stood up suddenly, the loud scraping sound of his chair causing Carson to stop in his tracks, “I will speak to Mr Barrow.”

“But my lord –“ He protested, looking baffled

“Carson” Robert, interrupted him, his voice suddenly stern, “let me handle this please.” He turned his wife and daughters, “Ladies, if you will excuse me, I have something I need to discuss privately with Mr Barrow in the drawing room.”

“Ought I to come with you, Papa?” Mary asked, clearly concerned that Thomas was in the midst of conceiving some type of plot against the family.

“No my dear, that won’t be necessary” He turned once again to Carson, “Please make sure no one disturbs me…under **any** circumstances.”

Carson bowed his head obligingly, “Of course, my lord.”

 

Thomas felt as though he might faint or throw up or both once it was just the two of them in the drawing room. At this point he felt as though his soul had extracted itself from his body and he had become a ghost, merely looking upon the situation as an observer.

For a moment there was absolute silence, punctuated only by the rhythmic pumping of Thomas’s own heartbeat in his ears.

“Do you want one?” Robert asked, pouring himself a double measure of whiskey from his drinks cabinet. Thomas shook his head, feeling suddenly like a little boy brought before the headmaster.

Robert fixed his drink and sat down, “What did you want to ask me?” He took a sip of his drink without a hint of a wince, his posture- sat back, legs crossed- showed no signs that he felt uneasy.

“I- I- my mother... she… my father…Is it true?” Thomas had planned something much more eloquent in his head and yet in the moment that was all he could manage.

“Is what true?”

It became clear that Robert was not going to make this easy for Thomas and though Thomas sensed that they both knew what was being left unspoken between them, neither wanted to be the one to step over into that new unknown realm.

“Please… please dear god, just tell me the truth, do I not deserve that at least?” Thomas begged, his voice beginning to strain under the tension that came from not breaking down. He didn’t want to be the one to say the words, to ask the question, to make it real. But Robert continued to do nothing but stare at Thomas, his eyes almost looking straight through him as if he were the ghost he feared he had become.

“You are my father, are you not? Or do you wish to deny that?” Thomas uttered after an aching moment of silence. He looked out of the window, not wanting to see Lord Grantham’s reaction and to conceal the tear droplets that had sprung from his eyes.

And yet still there was silence.

A silence that seemed to creep and creak around the room, dripping with the tainted secret of the men’s pasts now colliding together, it seemed to grasp at Thomas’s throat and hold him in a chokehold and stretch on endlessly.

“Yes” Robert’s voice arose quietly from the silence.

Thomas turned sharply to look at Robert, to check that he had not imagined the response somehow.

“Yes, it is true”

This time Thomas saw the words leave Robert’s mouth and he could be in no doubt that he had actually said them. He took a step back in shock, the tears that had formed slowly in his eyes were now cascading uncontrollably down his cheeks without a sound.

“Thomas I- “ Robert began to stand up from his chair and move towards Thomas, the hand that was not holding his drink outstretched slightly, seemingly with the intention of touching Thomas’s arm.

“Don’t! Don’t touch me!” Thomas shouted, overwhelmed and consumed by blind panic, “You bastard” he cursed through gritted teeth, “you watched me grow up in this house as your _servant_?! My whole life! Even after my mother died and I had no one!” Thomas shook his head in disbelief, his jaw tensed and fists clenched.

“I only ever meant to protect you” Robert’s voice remained calm, his eyebrows arched in an expression of concern.

Thomas let out a laugh, “Protect me?! From what? Having a family? Being loved? How noble of you!”

“You were an illegitimate child, Thomas, a product of an affair, I did not want for you to have to cope with people’s disregard for you because of that!”

“You mean _you_ did not want to cope with it” Thomas’s face was red with anger and pain, he felt and looked as though he had been stabbed through the heart with Robert’s words.

“You know, I actually felt sorry for you” Thomas said, a smile escaping his lips as he thought of the irony “when you and Lady Grantham lost the baby. I actually felt bad for you, that you had no heir to your estate!” Thomas shook his head, still smiling, tears still streaming “But you had one all along, didn’t you? Just not one you felt was good enough. Anyone but Thomas, eh? What a foul creature he is”

“Is that what this is about? You want the estate?”

“My God” Thomas breathed, his eyes widened in disbelief, “you really do not understand it, do you?” Thomas turned to leave the room, his heart could not take any more, could not contain all the pain being thrust inside it, he feared he might collapse from the torment of it all.

“Thomas, wait!” But Thomas did not, he did not want to hear Robert and his excuses, for Thomas it was clear in his mind; Thomas Barrow was the kind of human being so intrinsically abhorrent that not even his own father could bring himself to love him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, any comments/kudos/bookmarks are so so appreciated! I had a bit of a struggle getting this chapter to come out how I wanted it to so I'm sorry if that shows in any way!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Robert struggle in the aftermath of their confrontation.

6

 

Thomas strode determinedly through the hallways, his legs on autopilot. His eyes were blurred and his ears were ringing; only muffled sounds escaping through. "Mr Barrow?" He wasn't sure who had said it, he didn't care. He marched on, moving faster and faster as he entered into the servers quarters. "Thomas, where are you going?" There was another voice and another and another but no faces to put to the sounds. He ran now, tears streaming down his face though his expression was oddly vacant and he seemed to move as though in a trance. He stormed up the stairs to the men's dorms and ran into his room, leaning on the door as he slammed it shut, his chest rising and falling sharply.

"Mr Barrow!" There was a shout from the other side of the door and knocking that was so hard it made his head shake against the wood but he ignored it.

His mother's journal lay on his bed, it looked so innocent; a greenish grey book, bound in a rough hessian material which was fraying at the edges. So dull and inconspicuous, yet containing such earth shattering words within its pages. He lunged at the book in a flying rage and smashed it as hard as he could on the edge of his set of drawers; over and over again. His bedroom door burst open, he didn't turn to look, he heard an array of voices at the door, "What is he doing?" "My god, he's gone mad!

He paused to look at the binding, there were small dents on its face and spine but it still taunted him. He let out an anguished cry, falling to his knees he flung the book open and began to rip and crumple the opening pages. 

"Thomas Thomas Thomas, stop" A voice amongst the cacophony of sound that brought him round- Jimmy. 

He felt the warmth of Jimmy's hands pulling his arms back to stop his path of destruction.

"It's ok, I'm here, it's ok" 

Thomas broke down into sobs, causing his whole body to shake. His arms grew limp in Jimmy's softened grip.

“What on earth is he doing?” Someone called from the doorway.

“Would you all just leave, give him some space would you?” Jimmy shouted turning his head to whoever had come to stare at Thomas as though he was an act at the circus.

He turned back to Thomas, crouching behind him his hands still around the tops of Thomas’s arms although he was no long resisting, "It's ok" he whispered, "I promise, I'm not leaving, it's ok"

“Oh my god, what have I done?” Thomas suddenly gasped, tears still rolling down his cheeks, he looked at his hands which held scraps of his mother’s journal, like a murderer looking at the blood of their victim and realising the horror they had unleashed. He furiously grabbed the torn shreds which were lying around him and frantically opened the journal, straightening out the damaged pages and placing the shreds as neatly as he could back onto the page. “I’m sorry mum, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” he whispered, growing more and more distressed as he failed to mend the damage.

Jimmy moved round to sit by Thomas’s side, watching him all the while with his eyebrows furrowed with concern. He had never seen Thomas like this and it scared him. He and everyone else at Downton had grown accustomed to Thomas’s stony cold face which very occasionally broke into a smile and not for very long. They had seen him scheme and plot and revel in other people’s misfortunes but they had never seen him cry.

Jimmy carefully placed his hands over Thomas’s and gently moved them away from the jigsaw he had made of the book in front of him.

“Please tell me what’s happening, there must be something you haven’t told me”

Thomas slowly turned to look at Jimmy. He looked so vulnerable, as though someone had finally peeled off the mask that he had been wearing all this time and found the little boy who was so completely lost and alone hiding beneath it.

“I can’t say” Thomas’s voice was a croaky whisper from the crying and although his tears had slowed they were still slowly sliding down his cheeks.

“Why? Come on, I thought we agreed to be friends, didn’t we? Friends tell each other things.” Jimmy said softly.

Thomas shook his head, “Please, Jimmy, I can’t – “ He stopped himself as his voice began to crack.

“Ok, ok you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Jimmy paused and glanced at the book lying in a mess on the floor, “It’s got something to do with that though?” He gestured at the book. Thomas resisted looking; he was trying his utmost not to collapse in a heap and so simply nodded in response.

“What is it?” Jimmy was trying equally as hard not to push Thomas too far; he could see how drawn his face looked and how red and glassy his eyes were from crying and it stirred a dull pain within the pit of his stomach to see him suffering so much.

“My mother’s…” Thomas mumbled, weak with exhaustion from crying so much, “her diary, from the year I was born.”

Jimmy paused for a moment; scanning Thomas’s face “You miss her?”

“Yes, of course…but also no, it sounds awful but I can barely remember her and even when I think I can I don’t know whether it’s something I’ve dreamed up in my head or not” Thomas stared blankly into the distance as he spoke, he was no longer crying though his eyes were bloodshot and vacant looking.

“I’m sometimes the same with my parents, you know” Jimmy placed his hand gently on Thomas’s shoulder, “I get scared that I’m forgetting them but I think…maybe it doesn’t matter if the memories are made up, you’re sort of keeping them alive in your head, aren’t you?”

Thomas slowly turned to look at Jimmy, “Do you remember your father?”

Jimmy smiled, a memory clearly flashing in his mind, “Yeah, he were a wild one, drove my mum barmy half the time. I remember he burnt his eyebrows off one time trying to teach me how to light a fire for the kitchen. Mum wasn’t impressed but we couldn’t stop laughing about it- he went round the village, head held high, telling everyone it was the latest fashion” Jimmy laughed as he recounted his story and Thomas couldn’t help but smile.

“But you knew he cared about you? That he loved you?”

“Yeah, of course…I mean he wasn’t the type to talk about feelings and the like but I knew” There was a clear hint of sadness in Jimmy’s eyes as he spoke, he tried not to think about his parents too often in case he lost himself in grief and so when he did think of them it felt like splitting open a freshly healed wound. “The night before he left for the war…he took me to one side, gave me this big talk about how I was the man of the house now and that if anything should happen to him then to look after mum…and he told me he was proud of me…” Jimmy could feel his voice waver slightly as he spoke, “It was the first time I saw real fear in his eyes, you know, I’d never seen him be that serious before and it terrified me…then that was the last time I saw him.” Jimmy quickly swallowed away the lump that had arisen in his throat and blinked quickly to conceal the tears that had started to form in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you –“

“No no” Jimmy smiled “it’s good to talk about them.”

There was a moment of silence between them, their eyes fixed upon one another, an unspoken bond formed out of having lost so much so young.

“She wrote something about your father in it, didn’t she?”

Thomas looked away quickly, not wanting to give anything away with his expression, his heart started beating rapidly in his chest like it was trying to push itself out of his ribcage.

“Whatever she said, whoever he was…if you didn’t like what you read- you’re not him, you share blood but he doesn’t make who you are”

Thomas continued to stare blankly at nothing in particular, his jaw clenched.

There was a long silence; Jimmy unsure of what to say and Thomas firmly concentrating on avoiding crying.

“Do you find me disgusting?” Thomas’s voice was so quiet that it seemed to fade into the silence of the room and Jimmy wondered for a moment whether he had actually spoken at all.

“No! Of course not! Why would you ask that?”

“I know that’s why he doesn’t want me, deep down, that must be why…who could love someone so disgusting?” Thomas whispered barely audible through gritted teeth, tears building in his eyes. He remembered the night he had tried to kiss Jimmy, the way he had looked at him- like he was dirt on the bottom of his shoe. The way Carson had looked him up and down and denounced him as foul. It made him feel sick to think of but he could see now why Robert didn’t want him.

“You are _not_ disgusting, do you hear me? Thomas, look at me” He placed his hand on Thomas’s chin without thinking and pulled his face to look at him, “You are not disgusting”

“You thought I was, that night- that night I tried… I know you did” Thomas looked away, feeling his cheeks begin to flush.

“I didn’t, I was just taken aback- I didn’t expect it and I handled it badly… but I think most people would be quite shocked to find someone on top of them in the night, wouldn’t they? It doesn’t make you disgusting” Jimmy’s eyes didn’t falter, his hand was still on Thomas’s face, now cupping his cheek, his fingers stretched upwards toward his temple. “Perhaps a bit overeager” Jimmy smiled, “but not disgusting.”

 

\--------------------------

 

Robert paced the drawing room drink in hand. He felt as though he must be dreaming and now as he looked around the room he couldn’t be quite sure it had actually happened; there was no evidence of Thomas having been there, no mark that he had confronted him over his biggest secret. The room seemed to be innocent to what it had witnessed; it looked the same as it always did. He felt as though everything should have changed somehow, he wondered how the world could keep turning, how everything could be the same when so much had changed from that single conversation.

The door opened and Robert turned, startled. Cora stood in the doorway looking painfully concerned. Despite having asked Carson to fetch his wife he had somehow expected it to be Thomas entering the room and he was surprised to find himself slightly disappointed to be met by Cora instead.

“My darling, is everything alright?” She hurried over to him and clasped him arm lovingly, trying to read his expression. He motioned for her to sit down and the two sat side-by-side, holding hands.

“Thomas knows” That was all he could muster, only two words and yet earth shattering in their meaning; Cora’s face fell.

“You mean-“ She started, trailing off as she saw Robert nod.

“But how?” She tried her best to remain calm in her voice but it was clear from her expression how in shock she was.

“Lord knows” He sighed in anguish, rubbing his forehead anxiously, “but I made a bloody good mess of it”

“You were in shock darling, I’m sure he could see that” She clasped his hand within both of hers and gently stroked it as she spoke, doing her best to comfort her husband whilst simultaneously trying to come to terms with the conversation herself.

“You should have seen his face, he looked so…hurt and betrayed and I-I just made it worse…I should go and see him” Robert said, looking flustered and panicked as he quickly got up from his seat. Cora caught his arm as he stood up, “Darling, I think you should give him some time to process this and we should decide how we move forward.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well now Thomas knows, how long will it remain a secret? You know how he is! It could ruin us all! And what about the girls? The poor girls! There must be some way of keeping him quiet, something he wants in return!”

Robert tore his arm away from Cora grip and held his head in his hands, “I know he isn’t perfect, I make no pretence of that, but he is not evil, he will do nothing with the intention of hurting us, I am sure of that”

Cora shook her head, “How can you be so sure? Think of his past misdemeanours! I know you are loyal to him but we have to protect our family and the estate, surely you can see that?”

“He _is_ my family, Cora! And what good has it done keeping it secret so far? I’ve had to endure watching my son, my _only_ son grow up from a distance, never being allowed to get too close in case someone grows suspicious! I knew how alone he must have been after Hettie died and I couldn’t do anything; just had to watch him suffer! And now he knows, he knows and he hates me. There’s nothing left to protect”

Robert strode towards the door but it opened before he could touch the handle. “Mother!” He exclaimed, startled to see her standing there.

“Good grief, Robert, you look awful! What _is_ going on today? I had quite the trouble trying to persuade Mr Carson to allow me to see you, can you believe?” She ranted indignantly, marching into the room, upon which she noticed Cora looking equally as worn as Robert.

“Goodness, whatever is the matter? Has somebody died?”

Cora looked past Violet towards Robert, “You ought to tell her” she muttered just loud enough for Robert to hear.

Robert sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Tell me what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter has taken so long to put up! Took me a long time to write (even though it's not that long)! I hope you don't mind that this is a very emotion-based chapter rather than an action packed one, but I felt it was really important to explore how they were both feeling. More drama to come though- promise!  
> As always your comments and kudos are so appreciated, they honestly mean so much to me, it always makes me smile to know that people are reading the story and enjoying it!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up from where chapter 6 left off; Thomas is left confused by an encounter with Jimmy and Robert receives some news which affects his plans of reconciling with Thomas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so incredibly sorry that this has taken me so long to write. Basically I'm studying for a postgraduate degree at the moment and it's taking up an annoying amount of time! It's doubly annoying because I've had this chapter swirling around my head for ages, knowing exactly what I wanted to happen in it but I just could not find time to write it at all! Thank you all so much for being patient and bearing with me!

7

Robert, Violet and Cora sat stiffly in the drawing room, the three of them positioned like ornaments in a doll’s house; awkward and uneasy yet dignified as ever.

“But how could he possibly know?” Violet broke the silence, looking perturbed as she glanced between Cora and her son.

“He doesn’t know, he didn’t ask” Cora responded quietly before Robert had chance. Violet shot a look at Robert, raising an eyebrow in judgement of him.

“I don’t see how that matters now anyway!” Robert retorted, irritated, standing up from his seat to continue pacing around the room.

“Oh, so you’re quite happy to allow someone to be spreading our family’s secrets around the country, are you?” Violet spoke sharply, leaning forward on her walking stick, her lips pursed, “Well in that case, I’m not sure why we ever kept it a secret at all!”

Robert stopped pacing and turned to face his mother, his face slightly red from exasperation, “May I remind you that I never wanted to keep it a secret in the first place? It was _you_ who was so intent on hiding him away!”

“Yes, damage control for _your_ foolish decisions!”

“Stop it, both of you” Cora chided them like they were a pair of toddlers squabbling over a toy, “raking over the past won’t help anything now.”

Robert and Violet both fell silent, feeling slightly ashamed.

“I need to go and speak with him” Robert spoke, aiming to keep his voice as calm and steady as possible and yet determined enough that his mother would not challenge him.

“Darling, you said yourself how upset he was, you don’t want to say anything now that could damage the situation further” Cora said softly, a slightly pained smile forcing its way across her face.

A knock came at the door.

Robert sighed heavily, “Yes?” He called out, making no attempt to conceal his annoyance at the interruption.

“I’m terribly sorry milord,” Carson appeared abashedly from behind the door as it slowly opened “but there’s a business call for you from London, urgent apparently”

Robert silently clenched his fists but gave no other indication of his frustration, simply nodding at Carson before quickly turning to his mother and wife both looking slightly panicked, “I won’t be long.”

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

Thomas allowed a small smile to creep across his lips, his cheek still held by Jimmy’s cold fingertips. “That’s more like it” Jimmy smiled, “I do so wish you could be happy” he said with such sincerity that it caught Thomas off guard.

“You know I only ever find happiness in your company” Thomas responded quietly, his smile dissolving.

“Well in that case, I shall just have to ensure you spend every waking moment with me from now on” Jimmy smiled widely, his eyes glinting mischievously, Thomas’s lips broke into a coy smile and his eyes darted to the floor. Suddenly he felt Jimmy’s thumb rest gently on his lower lip, he brushed it slowly against the pink skin, sending shivers down Thomas’s spine.

“Jimmy, don’t…” Thomas begged weakly, his pulse racing.

“Why?” Jimmy whispered his face edging close enough to Thomas’s that he could feel the warmth of his breath against his cheek.

“The power of knowing how I feel about you…it’s got to your head, you see this all as a game but I have no intention of being your play thing, Jimmy” Thomas sighed, gently removing Jimmy’s hand from his cheek, yet his heart seemed pulled as he held on to the hand instead of releasing it, “Something easy to keep you amused for a while”

“That’s not how I feel” Jimmy shook his head, slipping his hand free from Thomas’s and sliding it slowly up his arm.

“No?” Thomas breathed, though a sound barely passed his lips

“No” Jimmy smiled.

Before either could have time to process the conversation further, Jimmy leaned in. There lips met, Thomas breathed in sharply, partly through surprise and partly through utter relief that something he had been aching for for so long had finally happened. He pushed his uninjured hand upwards and through Jimmy’s hair, pulling him closer in, sending tingles down his spine as he felt Jimmy’s hands on him, one gently cupping his right cheek, the other tugging on in his uniform’s lapels.

Then as abruptly as it had started, it ended, both men out of breath still holding on to each other, still sitting on the floor, Thomas’s mother’s journal still splayed out in pieces in front of them.

Thomas swallowed nervously whilst trying to catch his breath. His eyes darted wildly around Jimmy’s face as he tried to judge his reaction, preparing himself for a violent reaction that he had encountered so many times in the past. He winced as he watched Jimmy get to his feet and awaited with panic the tirade that was about him. But Jimmy simply smiled, “I’m going to tell Mrs Hughes you’re not well enough to work today” He said, straightening out the creases that had formed in his uniform from having sat on the floor. His voice was clear, his hands steady, he was calm; Thomas couldn’t understand. Had he just dreamt that kiss or had it actually happened? But his lips were still tingling and he could see the side of Jimmy’s normally slicked back hair slightly ruffled where his hand had run through it moments before.

“She can deal with Carson, I don’t much fancy arguing with him right now” Jimmy continued, “I’ll try and sneak up a bit later but just try and get some rest, will you?” He smoothed his hair back in place and walked towards the door. Thomas said nothing; he wouldn’t know where to begin, even if his mouth stopped being dry enough for him to speak. He just followed Jimmy with his eyes as he crossed the room where he stopped at the door to turn back at Thomas, “We will make this ok, I promise you.” And then he left.

And it was Thomas alone again just as it had always been; just him, his tingling lips and his mother’s book.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Bad news I’m afraid” Robert started speaking before he had even entered the drawing room fully, Cora and Violet had been talking in hushed tones before he had returned and seemed slightly startled by him.

“The deal I made with Mr Gregson in Islington last month has hit a bit of a stumbling block.”

“Oh no, is it serious?” Cora asked, concern etched on her face.

“I’m afraid it is, we could face some serious losses if we don’t sort the whole mess out” he sighed, “I have to leave for London”

Cora’s mouth literally gaped open whilst Violet’s eyes widened but she looked more disapproving than shocked. “Surely it can wait until we’ve sorted out our current predicament!” Violet said sternly, she had a knack for making her son, a grown man with a family and Lord of a vast estate, feel like he was a little boy with just a simple raise of an eyebrow and this moment was no exception.

“Mother, if there was another option, believe me I would take it!” He snapped, “Now, I have to go and pack before there’s no estate left for you to defend”

The Dowager looked perturbed by Robert’s outburst but made no further attempt to persuade him to stay, instead Cora now stood up and clung to his arm as he motioned for Carson who was standing outside the room.

“Darling, do you not think it best to try to sort this out before you leave?” She looked up at him anxiously and he averted his eyes.

“Carson, is Barrow around? I need to speak to him”

“He’s been taken ill I’m afraid, nothing too serious but he’s gone to sleep it off. I can only apologise for his impertinence earlier milord, I can assure you –“ Carson replied, beginning to babble slightly as he apologised for Thomas’s behaviour despite the fact it was clear that Robert was no longer listening,

“Very well, I will take Bates with me to London” Robert interrupted, he had no time to listen to niceties at that moment.

“Cora, would you assist me in packing?”

“Milord, there’s certainly no need for you to do that yourself!”

“Ah nonsense, it could do with a woman’s touch”

Carson nodded, not one to argue with the word of his master and seemingly unaware of the drama that was unfolding in front of him.

“Very well, milord, I shall seek out Mr Bates” Carson said somewhat reluctantly before nodding his head and turning to fulfil his duty.

Robert wasted no time in rushing upstairs to his and Cora’s room.

“Robert, what are you doing?” Cora called after him, fast on his heels.

“I need to speak to Thomas before I leave!” He turned to her in panic, still midway up the stairs, she had caught up to him and held his arms gently.

“You heard Bates, he’s not well, it wouldn’t be right!”

“He was perfectly fine before, he’s surely avoiding me because he thinks I don’t care!”

“My darling” Cora said in hushed, calming tones, “he needs some time to process this, as do you…”

Robert sighed, resigned to the idea that his wife was indeed correct but his stomach felt as though it was being forced through a wringer and it pained him to think of Thomas alone and upset. He nodded silently at Cora and held her hand as they continued up the stairs, now a little calmer than before.

Once in their room, Robert sat at his desk and hastily retrieved a piece of paper and some ink.

“What are you doing?” Cora asked, coming up behind him and resting her hands on his shoulders.

“I need to at least tell him what’s happening” Robert answered, his hand already moving furiously as he scribbled words across the paper.

 

_Dear Thomas,_

_I do not know how to begin to say all the things that I must say to you. I have spent so many years thinking of this moment and never once did it go as badly as it did this morning. That is entirely my fault. I’m afraid I have failed you today as a father and as a decent human being._

_With deep regret, I must travel to London at haste. I did not intend to abandon you in this way- nor at any other stage of your life although it may have very well felt that way to you._

_When I return we shall discuss everything that must be discussed and I hope you will find a way to forgive me for the damage I have caused you. But know this; there was never a day in your life where I was not proud to know that you were my son, nor one where I did not miss you and wish that we could be like any other parent and child._

_Yours._

_Robert_

 

When he was finished he folded the paper hurriedly in thirds and quickly wrote _Thomas_ on the front. He handed it to Cora, smudging the ink slightly as his thumb pressed against where he had just written.

“Please, my love, please ensure he gets this” His face looked slightly anguished as he placed the letter in Cora’s hands. She looked at the paper in her finger tips as though she had been handed a dangerous weapon- shock and fear written in her eyes, though the rest of her face seemed desperate to hide these emotions.

“Promise me, Cora!” Robert demanded, a slight panic in his voice.

There was a knock at the door before she could answer.

“Come in!” She called, turning away from Robert.

Bates stood in the doorway smiling, “Mr Carson mentioned you were attempting your own packing, I thought you could do with a hand”

Robert gave him a false smile back. There was too much to try and sort out and he realised at this point that he had little choice but to leave as soon as possible.

“Yes, thank you, Bates” He continued his false smile and walked Cora to the door as Mr Bates entered and began sorting his clothes.

“All will be well, my love” Robert said softly to Cora, gently stroking her cheek as they stood in the doorway, the door slightly closed behind them so that they were out of Bates’ line of vision.

“I think it best that you and mama stay out of this whilst I am gone, try to stay out of his way or give him the week off, just please don’t attempt to correct things yourselves” He spoke quietly and gently and held her with such love that her eyes softened and she smiled.

“Yes, of course” she said and she leant up and kissed him lightly on the lips.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It was dark by the time Thomas’s bedroom door creaked open again, from the light glowing behind him from the corridor he could make out Jimmy’s silhouette standing there.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Jimmy whispered as he crept into the room and shut the door behind him.

Thomas sat up, he was in bed but not under the covers and was wearing his work clothes still with his jacket and shoes taken off and shirt slightly undone.

“No, it’s fine, I’ve just been reading” The curves of his face were lit by the dull light of a small lamp at his bedside, he held his mother’s book in his hands; the parts which he had ripped lay in a neat pile on his set of drawers.

“I brought you this” Jimmy said, sitting on the side of the bed and handing Thomas a bread roll which felt almost rock-like in its staleness in his hands.

“Wow, thank you” Thomas said sarcastically, tapping the back of it to demonstrate how hard it was.

“Oi!” Jimmy laughed, nudging Thomas’s arm lightly, “it’s not easy trying to steal food from under Mrs Patmore’s nose, especially when I’ve made out you’re so ill you can barely stand!”

Thomas smiled and attempted to rip the bread up to eat, laughing under his breath as he struggled.

“Anyway, what are you reading this old thing for?” Jimmy asked, snatching the book out of Thomas’s lap, “I thought it was what made you upset in the first place?”

Thomas sighed, “Yes, I know, I’m just reading the beginning bits, before all the upsetting things” He said, pulling the book back out of Jimmy’s hands and holding it under his arm.

“Actually, you’d like some of this” Thomas smiled to himself, flicking open the book and turning to the second page, “listen to this description of Mr Carson”

“Lord, he was here back then? Is he immortal or something?”

Thomas laughed and found the passage with his finger, reading it out loud.

Jimmy smirked, “She had good intuition then, your mother”

Thomas nodded proudly before reading what she had written about Mrs Hughes.

Jimmy smiled, “It’s hard to think of the likes of Mrs Hughes and Carson being young, isn’t it?” He mused out loud, “What did she say about Lord and Lady Grantham?” He asked eagerly, edging closer towards Thomas and the book.

“Oh…uh, she doesn’t really mention them” Thomas said somewhat awkwardly trying to act as nonchalantly as possible.

“I suppose she wouldn’t have spent much time with them but you’d think she would have said something about them…let’s see…” Jimmy leaned over, inches away from Thomas’s face as his finger searched across the page and landed on the date in the top left hand corner. “1889? Blimey Thomas, I knew you were old but not _that_ old!” Jimmy teased, a cheeky grin gleaming across his face.

Thomas, who had been frowning with concern at Jimmy being so close to the truth hidden within the book’s pages, broke out into a smile.

“Cheeky git!” He cried, “I’m not old, I’m mature, like a fine wine!”

Jimmy laughed, “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that”, to which he received a light shove from Thomas.

“Oh, I brought cards!” Jimmy said suddenly, patting his inside jacket pocket and revealing a set. “Do you want to?”

Thomas smiled and nodded and Jimmy set about dealing the cards, a content smile on his face.

And for that evening as they sat together on Thomas’s thinning worn out mattress, under the yellow glow of the lamp and playing cards, Thomas felt the most normal he had felt in a long time; as though, within those four walls at least, it did not matter who was or was not his father or whether he preferred men or not, all that mattered was that he was Thomas and Jimmy was Jimmy and that there, right then, they were content to be content together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always I cannot express how much your comments and kudos mean to me and I want to say a huge thank you to all those who have commented and/or given kudos, it honestly brightens up my whole day when I read your comments or get a notification saying I have kudos. You guys are great!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thomas comes face to face with members of his 'new' family...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies for how late this is- life got a little bit in the way but I never stopped thinking about the story and what would happen next and I've been desperate to get back to writing it especially with all the lovely support and kudos and comments from all of you. I honestly can't even tell you how much it all means to me

8

 

For a moment when Thomas woke the next morning his chest did not feel tight and heavy. He had glanced at the spot by his bed where he and Jimmy had kissed less than 24 hours previously and thought momentarily only of that rather than the shreds of his mother's diary scattered around him and the dried tear stains on his cheeks. But his mind soon caught up and the pain and pressure of his newly discovered identity descended on him like a pile of bricks being hurled at his chest. Today he must face Robert, he knew that; he couldn't hide in his room forever.

3 cigarettes later Thomas was dressed and ready, his hair coiffed slickly back, as close to perfect as is his quavering fingers would allow. He had barely made it down the stairs into the servants quarters when Carson appeared in front of him like a bloodhound who had sniffed out his prey and had lay in wait ready to pounce. "Barrow, my office- now!" 

Thomas inhaled deeply, trying his best not to roll his eyes and exacerbate the situation.

"How can I be of assistance?" Thomas asked, an overtly fake sickly sweet smile spread across his face.

"Do not think for a moment that I have forgotten your impertinence yesterday" Carson scowled, "you are very fortunate indeed that his lordship is kind enough to tolerate your folly"

Thomas stifled a laugh, kind, he thought, where has his kindness been all these years?

"Is this amusing to you in some way, Mr Barrow?"

"Not at all sir"

"I should think so, I needn't tell you that your job and reputation are on the line here"

Thomas's face fell, his heart lurched suddenly "Does his lordship want me gone?" He did his best to maintain the superior, smug tone to his voice but even he could tell he sounded somewhat desperate; like a child begging for attention.

"We shall have to see, fortunately for you he has had to take leave urgently to London so he may well have forgotten your misdemeanours by the time of his return to the abbey."

"He's gone?"

"Yes, but that does not mean you are off the hook!" 

Carson began his usual rant about Thomas's conduct and how he never would have talked to his superior in such a manner but Thomas wasn't listening; _Robert had gone, just left without saying anything, did he hate him that much?_

"I suggest you get out of my sight before I dismiss you myself!" 

Thomas blinked out of his trance, not realising that an aching silence had fallen between the pair.

 

Thomas spent the rest of the day keeping out of everybody's way- Jimmy, Carson and especially the Crawleys. He made it to late afternoon without running into anyone, performing each of his tasks on autopilot, his mind firmly fixed on Robert and the way he had looked at him when they had last seen each other.

He was still running the scene over and over in his head as he made his way downstairs to have a cigarette, or several, when Mrs Hughes came running up the stairs somewhat frantically "No no no, turn around you!" She cried plonking a tea tray into his hands.

"The dowager's come to take tea with her ladyship, I've got to attend to lady Mary whilst Anna's at the market and Mrs Patmore has half the staff helping her with the pies for the fete this weekend!" She barely took a breath as she hurried along her way "Hurry up!" She called, already half way along the corridor, "They won't appreciate being kept waiting!" 

Thomas stood alone at the top of the stairs, clutching the silver tray in his hands, the sound of the metal teapot clanging lightly in his unsteady grip. He felt panic rise in his chest and looked desperately around in the hope of being able to pass the duty over to someone else but there was no one. Much like always Thomas was utterly alone. 

 _They don't know who you are_  Thomas told himself, breathing deeply, _he can't possibly have told them, you wouldn't still be here if they knew._

He repeated this to himself over and over until the words ceased having meaning and he found himself confronted with the door to the parlour. He could hear the mumbled voices of the two women inside. He swallowed hard and entered before he could convince himself to do otherwise.

 

On entering the room, Cora and Violet fell silent, pulling apart slightly. Thomas felt his cheeks burn, singed by the fiery panic arising from his chest. He could not help but look at the dowager; properly look at her, as if looking at her for the first time. As a child he had wondered about grandmothers, he had liked the idea of them. In his head grandmothers were soft, plump and kind, if not sometimes a little matronly, who would comfort you and sneak you penny sweets after your mother had told you no. Yet here was his grandmother; ghostly and skeletal, swamped under piles of expensive fabric, perched on her chair like a vulture clinging to a tree branch watching and waiting for its prey to die. Thomas reasoned that the dowager had always been very loving and loyal to the family and perhaps she would have been the same with him had she known who he was, but he feared that if she were to know the truth now she would be disgusted by the mere thought of them sharing an ounce of familial blood.

 

Thomas suddenly became aware that he had perhaps been standing and staring a little too long and proceeded to quickly serve the women who appeared unusually awkward and stiff in his presence, as though he had interrupted a conversation of great importance. He busied himself with the tray, avoiding their gazes, he didn’t want to be there anymore than they did.

“Mr Barrow?”

Thomas jumped upon hearing his name spoken by the dowager, spilling a small pool of tea on the table where he had been holding the teapot.

“Yes, milady?” He did his best to remain calm but his body chose to ignore him and his words came out slightly more quavering and higher than he had hoped.

“I wonder whether you might entertain me a while? Cora is intent on abandoning me to run some mindless errand and it would not be a proper to allow a lady to drink her tea alone would it?” She smiled thinly in a way that set Thomas on edge.

“I’m not sure it would be proper to be entertained by someone such as me, milady, but I would be happy to enquire after Lady Mary or Lady Edith, I believe Mr Branson would also delight in the prospect – “

“Goodness, Mr Barrow, don’t be so preposterous” she began shooing Cora away with a sideways glance a small motion of her hand as she spoke, “here, sit.” She motioned to the seat that Cora had now vacated. Thomas looked slightly panic-stricken at Cora, who quickly looked away. After an awkward pause of hesitation Thomas gingerly sat on the seat, perched right on the end so that he might be able to flee at a moments notice- though he wasn’t sure what from.

Cora edged slowly towards the door and glanced back, her eyebrows furrowed with anxiety. Violet gave her a strong determined look and a small nod of the head and with that Cora left.

 

It was completely silent apart from the thick thumping sound of Thomas’s heart pulsing in his ears. He pulled his eyes away from the door where Cora had exited and dared to look at the dowager who met his eyes with a cold stare.

“It seems we have a problem on our hands, Mr Barrow”

Thomas swallowed, his throat dry, “I’m sorry to hear that, milady, if I can assist you in any way…”

“Let us not waste time feigning ignorance here, Thomas” She leant forward onto her cane, her eyes seemingly boring through into his soul.

“Now, if it had been up to me, I would’ve dealt with the whole debacle right at the beginning but Robert has always been far too soft natured for that sort of thing… and your mother of course, silly girl, she did nothing to help matters."

An icy chill ran up Thomas’s spine, his face flushed as is heart pounded against the walls of his rib cage and then suddenly turned ashen.

“Excuse me?” Thomas shook and his voice came out as just a soft croak.

“I will not let you ruin the whole reputation of this family, do you understand? I have worked too long and too hard to watch it be destroyed by someone like you.”

Violet’s words hit Thomas like knives, each one hacking at his heart bit by bit.

“I have no intention on destroying anything” Thomas’s voice was strangled and small and laid bare every ounce of pain he felt.

“You think I have no notion of who you are, Barrow? You think I have not watched you from the moment of your birth? Examined every action you took? I know what greed and evil lies within you.”

Thomas felt tears spring to his eyes, which he blinked away furiously.

“You will not have this estate and you will not ruin our good name. We want you gone.”

That took the wind from Thomas’s gut, as though he had been punched repeatedly until he could no longer breathe. He took a moment to compose himself, he was Thomas Barrow, he was not going to be intimidated by an elderly woman who looked as though she may disintegrate if you touched her.

“You would think you might take a little more care not to upset the one person who had the information needed to bring this family to the ground. I’m quite certain the papers would love the whole scandal”

Thomas did his best to look smugly confident, as though blackmail had been on his agenda the whole time, an idea that was perhaps not so hard to believe given his past. Though his façade only thinly veiled his panic.

Violet let out a small chuckle, “My dear boy, you do not get to my stage and status in life without knowing how to get what you want.”

There was a brief uncomfortable pause as though both were in a duel and waiting for the other to strike. “Do not mistake my words, it is not simply a desire that you leave, it _will_ happen and it will happen tonight”

“Is that so?”

“It is. Whether that is of your own accord or lead away in handcuffs for your…sexual deviance, I will let you decide that.”

Thomas’s heart stopped. _Prison?_ “And his lordship, what would he say if he found out about this?”

“Why do you think he went away? He wishes you to be gone upon his return.”

Another punch to the stomach, another stab to the heart.

“And if I waited until his return?”

“Then I am sure a very plausible argument could be made that Mr Kent has been privy to your illegal activities. I’m not sure how well suited he is to prison, are you?”

_Why Jimmy? Not Jimmy, he’d done nothing wrong._

 

The next thing he knew, Thomas was storming through the corridors of the Abbey, running down the stairs to the servant’s quarters as fast as he could and bolting into the courtyard before anyone could stop him. He collapsed into the brick wall behind him clutching his chest, out of breath. He needed a cigarette. He patted at his pockets desperately and found a packet and frantically lit one with a shaking blue flame. He inhaled sharply and let out a plume of white smoke tumbling from his lips. He thought of leaving Downton, turning his back on the only place to call home that he had ever known, the only place which retained any memories of his mother, the place that held Jimmy- he would never seen him again; his beautifully freckled face, his shining blue eyes that creased at the sides when he smiled, his warm rough hands that felt like home… they would all just be a memory that would fade over time and that meant that Thomas too would fade in Jimmy’s mind and surely quicker as he had never felt what Thomas had felt for him and that pained him; the thought that Jimmy would neither care about his absence nor remember whatever relationship they had formed. He tried not to think of Lord Grantham and the rest of the family and how they would celebrate his departure. He tried not to think of the disgust in his grandmother’s eyes when she had cast him out. Instead he focused on Jimmy and when he thought of him he knew that he had to leave, if only for his sake and his happiness; it felt better to think of it that way.

 

Night fell soon after and Thomas crept away to his room whilst the rest of the servants stood talking in the kitchen. He lit a lamp and watched the amber flame coat the four walls and its contents in glowing warmth. He wanted to stay one more night, to experience it all one last time and to truly take everything in but he knew he had no time. He set himself at once to his desk and fetched a paper and ink and wrote as fast as he could with little time to think.

 

_My dear Jimmy,_

_Even if I had the words to explain to you all that has happened, I do not have time to write them here. I should not even be writing this but I could not leave without saying goodbye. Had I not been forced, I would have wished to remain in your company forever._

_I hope you will forgive me in telling you that I fell so profoundly in love with you from the moment you arrived here at Downton and every moment since spent in your company has only served to fuel the flame that burns within my heart. I hope it does not make you uncomfortable to read this._

_I do not want you to think that I mistook our encounter last night as a sign of you returning my affection. I only want you to know that whatever intent was behind it, it was one of the most special moments of my life and I shall treasure it in my heart always._

_I wish you every happiness and success in the world; I know you will find it._

_Forever yours,_

_Thomas_

He folded the letter quickly, smudging the ink in his haste and wrote Jimmy’s name across the top, his heart thumping. He was sure in the days and weeks to come there would be a thousand things he would think of to say in that letter and yet none would come close to any amount of feeling that he had to convey. But he had no time for that now. He pulled a trunk out from under his bed that he had taken on his trip to New York with Lord Grantham. How silly it all seemed now, how naïve he felt. He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind and quickly brushed the dust that had collected off its lid. He had few possessions despite having lived his whole life in this house and within a matter of minutes the only clothes he had were packed along with his comb, pomade, cigarettes, his mother’s locket and the books and letters of hers that had torn his life apart. It all fitted in with plenty of room left to spare. He carefully removed his uniform, which he had worked so hard to get, and put on a thin brown day suit and white polo shirt. He checked his pocket watch and then waited. Soon the noise from downstairs began to peter out and the last footsteps and calls of goodnight could be heard from outside his door. It was time.

 

He stood up, heart pounding, his letter for Jimmy in one hand, his suitcase in another- gripping the handle so tight that his knuckles turned white. He left his room silently, closing the door behind him, careful not to look back, knowing that if he did he would surely be overcome with emotion or panic. He crept cautiously down the corridor, stepping carefully over the creakiest floorboards and stopped outside of Jimmy’s room. He sighed and gritted his teeth to stop the tears welling in his eyes. This was not the time to overthink things. He slotted his letter under his door and strode away as quickly and quietly as he could, holding his breath for fear of waking someone. It was not until he was in the cold night air that he dared to breathe.

 

He turned and took one last look at the abbey and though it was dark and there was no light to be seen coming from the windows he knew perfectly well where each and every room was in front of him and every memory each of those housed; he could almost see his younger self racing through the corridors chasing one of the dogs and being chased by Mrs Hughes.

 

He took a deep breath and turned away, walking onwards into the night. He would not cry. He would not turn back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very very very sorry for making the dowager a bit evil in this chapter, I always loved her on screen but I feel like it is the kind of thing she would do if she felt her family were in danger. Hope you're not all too mad at me!   
> As always any comments or kudos make me so incredibly happy and are hugely appreciated!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Thomas's departure...

9

 

Jimmy couldn’t sleep. He was sat up in bed, enveloped by the still darkness of the night and the soft glow of the moon. The wind whistled past his window and made the glass rattle in its unsteady wooden slats but Jimmy was too focused on pouring over the past day to take any notice. He gnawed at the flesh around his thumb as he thought about how Thomas had spent the day avoiding him…or maybe it had been Jimmy who has been ignoring Thomas, he couldn’t be sure.

 

If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t put much thought into kissing him the night before; Jimmy was impulsive, he didn’t tend to think about consequences and by the time he usually did, those consequences were already in full flow- and this was no exception.

 

He thought about getting out of his bed and creeping down the corridor to see Thomas and then instantly thought against it. His body half twisted to get out of the bed, half twisted to lie back down. He went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in his head. “Oh sod it.” He muttered, pulling back his bed sheet and standing up. He stumbled in the darkness, trying to feel for a shirt to throw over himself.

 

He stopped suddenly, still clutching a shirt in his hands, the sound of light footsteps coming down the corridor freezing him in his tracks. He felt an icy chill of fear crawl swiftly up his spine- he didn’t know why; the worst it could be was Carson, or maybe an intruder but he had the sudden urge to hide, to dive back into the bed and pretend to be asleep. But he stood silently and unwavering in the dark, clutching his heart in a hopeless attempt to dull its deafening thumping. Finally the footsteps stopped and he saw a shadow cast the other side of his door, a few seconds passed and then an envelope shot underneath.

 

Jimmy waited until he was sure the person had left and then a few seconds beyond that point before snatching the letter, his name written in smudged cursive on its front. He unfolded the paper with one hand and fumbled to light his bedside lamp with his other. He scanned its contents and then again and then read it thoroughly in case he had missed something the first few times. His heart pounded and blood rushed to his ears. Without thinking he picked up the lamp and ran down the corridor to Thomas’s room. He took no note of the creaky floorboards or how much noise his footsteps may have made. He didn’t even pause or knock at Thomas’s door; instead he flung it open and stared into the emptiness that greeted him. Thomas had never had many possessions to begin with but the room seemed utterly hollow without them now.

 

“Thomas?” His voice came out small and strangled and yet seemed to echo and reverberate around the four walls of the room. His eyes darted from the empty dressing table to the freshly made bed to the uniform hanging on the back of an old wooden chair; as if he were expecting Thomas to be standing there after all, with that dark brooding look on his face that he so often wore but no, not this time. Jimmy didn’t pause to think why it felt as though he had been punched in the stomach or why he couldn’t stand the sight of this room so hopelessly empty. Jimmy wasn’t much of a thinker; he was a doer, which is why he ran out of the room, down the staircase and out into the night.

 

As his feet hit the pebbles of the driveway, he noticed that they were bare for the first time. He couldn’t find it within himself to care at that moment; he could see a figure in the distance and if it was Thomas it was worth it. He ran with determination, still clutching the letter that had been left for him, the shirt he had thrown on billowed around him in the wind like an ethereal aura following him round and all the while his bare feet pounded against those stones which now felt like pins and daggers attacking his soles with every step. But he was closer now, close enough to… “Thomas!”

The figure spun round sharply, “Christ, Jimmy, you almost gave me a heart attack” Thomas looked ashen, his eyes were bloodshot even in the dull light of the moon and he was just as breathless as Jimmy from the shock.

“What the hell are you doing?” Thomas hissed, his voice low, eyes darting around. Jimmy suddenly realised how ridiculous he must have looked, half dressed and out of breath, hair windblown and falling into his eyes.

“I…” He started, feeling very self aware and wrapping his shirt around his chest, his fingers too numb to attempt the buttons, “What do you mean, what am _I_ doing? What are _you_ doing?” Jimmy snapped back to reality, realising why he was standing there and pushed the letter into Thomas’s chest. Thomas looked down and took the letter from him, now it was his turn to be self-aware.

“I’m sorry if you felt it inappropriate,” he crumpled the letter and put it in his pocket, “but I have to go now, Jimmy, I don’t have time for you to be offended”

“Offended? You think I’m out here because I’m offended?”

But Thomas had already turned back around, intent on walking away. Jimmy grabbed his arm and swung him back around before he had the chance.

“Please, Jimmy, I have to go” Thomas said sharply, gritting his teeth.

“You’re leaving because of me, aren’t you? Because of the other night?”

“Don’t be soft, Jimmy” Thomas laughed lightly and smiled in a half-hearted attempt to lighten the situation.

“Soft? I’m not the one writing letters confessing my undying love in the middle of the night!”

“To be fair to me, I never said _undying_ and… well, I didn’t expect I’d have to have a conversation about it with you…when you’re not wearing shoes”

Jimmy ignored Thomas’s weak smile and stared at him, intensely serious,

“Listen, Thomas, I’m not going to pretend I feel the same way that you do and I’m sorry if I led you on last night- you know I don’t think most of the time and I just… it felt right at the time and…I shouldn’t have done it, I’m sorry.”

Thomas bit his lip, trying to conceal the pain those words were causing him. He didn’t want Jimmy to regret having kissed him, not when it had meant to much to him.

 

“But that doesn’t mean you have to leave! We said we’d be friends, remember?”

“It’s not because of you, Jimmy” Thomas whispered

“Then what? If it’s not me, then whatever it is you’re scared of, whatever you’re running away from, where better to be protected from it than here?”

“Lord, you don’t even know what you’re asking of me!”

“No, I don’t, because you won’t talk to me about it! But how can running away solve any of it?”

Thomas couldn’t help but laugh, the irony of it all too much.

“I’m doing this for you, ok! I’m trying to protect _you_!” Thomas cracked, shouting louder than he had expected.

“Me? Why does this have anything to do with me?” Jimmy shouted back in a state of angry confusion.

“It doesn’t, it doesn’t- that’s the whole point! They’re trying to use you to get to me, to force me out!”

“Who’s they? Just tell me what’s going on!” Jimmy looked concerned now, eyes widened and suddenly horribly aware of Thomas, his breathing fast, eyes wild, hands raking through his hair, full of panic.

“My father… He wants me gone…I can’t tell you, I wish I could…But he’s powerful enough to ruin both our lives, Jimmy! For God’s sake I’m just trying to do the right thing!”

Thomas yelled, small droplets of tears emerging from the corners of his eyes, his face red and full of anguish anguished. Jimmy was silent for a moment, taking it all in, the image of the man in front of him, who everyone thought was so cold and calculating, crumbling before his very eyes, so completely broken. He reached out to touch Thomas, who flinched and pushed him away,

“No! Stop pretending to care! Stop messing with my head!

He batted Jimmy’s hands away violently, but Jimmy grabbed hold of his arms, looped them around his own waist and pulled Thomas in.

“I’m not pretending,” he whispered, “I care, I do”

They stayed like that for a while, pressed close together in the freezing cold until Thomas’s breathing slowed and his eyes dried up.

 

“Your father” Jimmy started, suddenly breaking the silence after having weighed up how to say what he was going to say several times in his head, “we know him, don’t we?”

Thomas pulled away instantly, “Jimmy, don’t” he warned, his voice thick with fear.

“How else could they threaten both of us? That’s why you’re running away, that’s why you’ve been such a wreck the last couple of days…your father, it’s him, isn’t it?”

Jimmy’s words hung in the air, Thomas looked ashen and felt sick to his stomach, there was no need to say who ‘him’ was, it was clear to both of them.

Thomas took a step back; he shook his head, his heart pounding,

“No, you’re wrong!” He shouted desperately

“Thomas it’s ok – “ Jimmy said calmly, stepping back towards Thomas his hand outstretched.

“No, no, no,”

 

Thomas felt trapped, despite being in the open air. He felt as though he were suffocating, like imaginary walls were closing in on him, a helpless animal caught in a trap.

 

So he turned and he ran. He ran faster than he knew he could, he couldn’t see in front of him, he couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet, he just kept running and running and running, his heart beating out of his chest and the sound of blood thumping in his ears.

 

***

 

Jimmy woke, bleary eyed and aching all over. His head felt foggy as he pushed himself up from the bed. Had he dreamt last night? He was almost certain he had, it felt utterly surreal; when he tried to remember it he felt as though he was watching himself from afar, standing in the driveway half dressed in the middle of the night.

He got out of the bed and winced as his feet touched the floor. Upon noticing the small bruises and scratches on the soles of his feet he resigned himself to the fact he had not, in fact, been dreaming- Thomas was gone.

 

He pulled his clothes on in a trance like state and dragged himself down the corridor. He paused at Thomas’s door and pushed it gently with two fingers. It creaked open without any force. He stood looking at the emptiness for a while, feeling achingly numb.

 

Finally he sighed deeply and walked slowly away, down the stairs and into the kitchen. Everyone was going about their usual business; Mrs Patmore was already running around the kitchen a bowl and spoon in her hand, ferrying Daisy about with a steady stream of instructions. Anna, Baxter and Mosley sat at the table finishing their breakfasts, Mrs Hughes scurried about determinedly muttering to herself. It was all so normal- painfully so.

 

“What’s up with _your_ face?” Daisy was staring at him from across the kitchen.

 

Jimmy didn’t answer.

 

“Are you ok Jimmy?” Anna looked up at him, concerned.

 

Jimmy could feel the eyes of everyone in the room looking at him, burning through him and yet he just stared blankly into space. He didn’t want to break the normality; he didn’t want to say what had happened because that would make it true.

 

“James?” Mrs Hughes stood in front of him, one hand on his arm.

The feel of her hand broke his trance he looked at her, “He’s gone…Thomas, he’s left”

Jimmy’s voice was weak and gravelly.

“What do you mean gone? Gone where?”

“I mean he’s not coming back, he left in the night and he’s not coming back”

“Are you sure?”

Jimmy was thankful for Mrs Hughes in this moment, he was certain no one else would care that Thomas had left but he knew that Mrs Hughes had a soft spot for Thomas and he was thankful for the opportunity to be allowed to be upset.

Jimmy nodded, “He left me a letter”

“Where is it? What did he say?”

“I- “ Jimmy started and then stopped, realising that the letter was now in Thomas’s pocket, which wasn’t exactly easy to explain.

“I lost it,” He continued slightly unconvincingly, “but it said that he had to leave, that he had no choice and that he wasn’t coming back.”

He decided on this occasion it might be best to leave out the part about Thomas being in love with him.

 

“Well that certainly makes dismissing him a little easier” Mr Carson’s voice suddenly rose up from behind Jimmy. Jimmy didn’t know how long he had been standing there; he turned around and scowled at him.

“That’s all you have to say?” Jimmy snapped

Carson looked momentarily shocked by his outburst, but was soon back to his statuesque demeanour.

“Forgive me for not mourning the loss of one of my least trustworthy and most inefficient members of staff”

“Members of staff? He wasn’t just a member of staff! He’s lived here all his life! He was born here! This is his home!” Jimmy was suddenly aware of the fact that he was shouting but he didn’t care.

“Well then you would think he would have more of a sense of duty to the family that allowed him to live under their roof.”

“Duty?!” Jimmy gritted his teeth, “Duty? You have no idea!” He scoffed.

 

“Might I suggest that we all might just take a moment to calm down, obviously emotions are running high.” Mrs Hughes appeared between the two of them, concern and worry etched on her face, doing her best to be the peacemaker.

 

“Yes I think that might be best, before James becomes the second member of staff to lose his position today” Mr Carson frowned; nose aloft, reassuming his usual air of superiority.

 

***  


Cora hadn’t eaten that morning, she had sat at the table with her family and feigned shock as they were told of Thomas’s departure and then done her best to keep her head down. She had felt sick at the pit of her stomach for her part in his fleeing and had soon after made her excuses.

 

Now she was sitting in her bedroom that she shared with Robert, a small worn out looking tin in her hands. She had found the tin many years ago, when the girls were still small, quite by accident and Robert was still unaware that she knew of its existence. She brought it out occasionally, sometimes after arguments with Robert to convince herself she had every right to be angry, sometimes to simply wallow in her own pain and sometimes just out of sheer curiosity. Today she had it to ease the guilt she felt, to re-summon those old buried feelings of pain; to make her actions justified.

 

She prised open the lid, which had started to rust slightly with age. On top of its contents was a small pair of knitted blue socks, she picked them out and pushed a finger into each one, imagining a baby’s feet fitting snugly inside them. Then there were the letters, piles of letters, mostly written on birthdays or special occasions. Cora had read all of them, some of them numerous times. They were never sealed, just folded and placed in a pile. They all started the same way,

“ _To my dear son Thomas”_ and finished with, “ _Your ever loving father, Robert”_.

Cora thumbed through them but didn’t read any then, she couldn’t bring herself to. Then finally was the embroidered handkerchief, which had

_Thomas Patrick Crawley-Barrow_

_20 th August 1889_

neatly stitched into it. She traced the outline of the word “Crawley”. It still stung to see that, to know that Thomas would always be Robert’s first born and that Hettie had managed to give him one thing she never could- a son.

 

She had thought on more than one jealousy-fuelled occasion about throwing the whole lot into the fire in the hope that destroying the evidence would destroy the pain. But she knew now from having watched the letter that Robert had given to her to give to Thomas burn that it didn’t heal anything, it just made things worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies once again for taking so long to write this- I got there in the end! Enormous thank you to all of you have read/commented/given kudos, you keep me going and make me smile, you have no idea the happiness each one of you give to my day when I see that you've taken the time to do any of those things.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which people are angry about Jimmy being angry that people aren't angry...

10

 

Jimmy gritted his teeth, the sound of people talking in hushed tones barely registering with him.

“Why are we just standing around? Why aren’t we out looking for him?” He suddenly burst out, his temper overcoming him.

“Since when did you care so much?” Daisy retorted, she stood the other side of the kitchen absent-mindedly ‘whisking’ whatever was in the bowl she was clutching in the crook of her elbow.

“I don’t!” Jimmy snapped a little too quickly, “I’m just trying to be a decent human being, looking out for people!”

Daisy snorted and stifled a laugh, turning away from Jimmy.

“He doesn’t need looking out for, Jimmy, he’s a grown lad, he can make up his own mind about what he wants to do” Mrs Patmore chimed in after giving Daisy a small nudge in the ribs with her elbow.

Mrs Hughes touched Jimmy’s arm gently and gave him a comforting smile, “Mrs Patmore’s right, dear, we can’t waste time looking for him, he _chose_ to go, he’s old enough to make that decision.” Her voice soft and calming, yet her eyes giving away a hint of pain she felt at Thomas’s sudden departure.

Jimmy wanted to feel comforted by her words, but he didn’t, he just felt more pained by the fact that Thomas _hadn’t_ chosen to go, he’d been forced and now he was alone and upset and could be anywhere.

“Well if you lot aren’t going to bother, I am” Jimmy stormed out of the room suddenly, knocking over a chair in his haste.

“Oh for heavens sake!” Mrs Hughes despaired, “That’s just what we need! Baxter, go and chase after him will you? I can cover for him for a while until he’s calmed down but the last thing any of us need is Mr Carson getting wind of this!”

Baxter nodded and fled after Jimmy.

 

“Jimmy! Jimmy wait! Slow down!” Baxter ran after Jimmy, hoisting her long dress up just above her ankles so she could try and keep up with him.

“I’m not going to stop you! Will you please just slow down so I can talk to you?” She panted.

Jimmy slowed down and then grounded to a halt, turning towards her and waiting for her to catch up, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

“What?” He snapped when she was close enough to talk at a normal volume.

“Come on, don’t be like that,” She frowned at him in an almost motherly way, “I know you cared about Thoma-“

“Will people stop saying that?!" Jimmy interjected angrily

“Alright, alright, calm down” Baxter said gently, holding her hands up in mock surrender, “I’m just saying, it’s ok to be upset that he’s gone and if you’re going to go looking for him, at least let me come with you”

“Why?” Jimmy scowled

“Well, partly because Mrs Hughes told me to and partly because goodness knows what mess you could get yourself into in the state you’re in” She smiled warmly at him and his hard glare softened slightly.

“Fine,” He sighed turning back around to face the direction he had been going in and trudging onwards, which Baxter took as a silent invitation to walk alongside him.

 

They decided that there wasn’t much point in looking around the town centre; if Thomas wanted to run away he was bound to do it properly, but they gave it a cursory once over and asked a few familiar faces if they had seen him before heading to the train station.

A slightly plump man with a thick brown moustache that seemed to encompass the majority of his face stood behind the ticket booth. He stood like a soldier, chest jutting out like he was called upon for duty.

 

“Excuse me” it had been decided that Baxter would do the talking after Jimmy had been rather short with people which had resulted in less than helpful responses.

“Yes madam, how may I be of service?” The ticket man beamed, his cheeks and bulging nose rosy from the cold.

“I wonder if you might be able to help us, we’re looking for our friend you see and we think he may have used the station last night. Did you happen to see a man in his thirties, with black hair, wearing a…”

“Brown suit” Jimmy interjected

“Yes brown suit,” Baxter continued, “and about this tall?” She gestured above Jimmy’s head for reference.

The man looked as though he’d been given a riddle to solve and stroked his long moustache, deep in thought.

“I might have done, madam, but I really can’t be sure, we get so many folk using the station you see”

Jimmy rolled his eyes in frustration and pushed in front of Baxter to the desk, “It was late at night, really late, maybe midnight or possibly later! There can’t have been that many people here at that time!”

The man nodded and tapped his chin as though this was another fine part of the puzzle, “Well there’d only be one train going at that hour, lad” he eventually said, “The sleeper train to London, if he was on any train last night then it will have been that one.” The man smiled to himself, happy to have solved the riddle as though it was some sort of aptitude test.

“Thank you” Baxter smiled

“But did you see him?” Jimmy demanded, his voice increasing in volume.

The man looked slightly taken aback but soon composed himself, “I believe I may have done, son, but I wouldn’t want you resting your hope on my testimony, like I said I can’t be sure.” He shrugged.

“Thank you” Baxter smiled somewhat apologetically, “That’s very helpful indeed”

She gently pushed on Jimmy’s back to indicate that they should leave but Jimmy seemed as though he were stuck to the floor, his eyes glazed over in a trance.

“London?’ He said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else.

“At least you know where he is now, I’m sure he’ll be just fine – “

“But he doesn’t know anyone in London! What will he do?”

“He’s old enough to look after himself, Jimmy, but we have to be getting back now, Mrs Hughes has covered for us for long enough”

“I need to find him.” Jimmy stood firmly in the same spot, unwavering in his determination. Baxter sighed audibly, she was renowned for her patience but Jimmy was beginning to try her.

“Jimmy, listen, we are _not_ going to London, do you understand? Even if we could afford the tickets and get the time off, we have no clue where Thomas is, London is enormous, we’d never find him! You know that!”

Jimmy knew she was right but it felt wrong to walk away from the station, like he was letting Thomas down somehow, like he was watching him run away all over again.

She gave him an encouraging small smile and a simple nod of the head and he begrudgingly followed her as she turned to leave, taking a last look back at the station as he went.

 

Jimmy bided his time for the next day. He decided he would not act on his knowledge of Thomas's secret until Lord Grantham arrived back and until then he would do his best to act as normal as possible.

Despite his best efforts he was constantly distracted, gazing out into the distance trying to remember conversations with Thomas that would indicate more specifically where he had gone. Most of the rest of the staff gave him a wide berth, only Mrs Hughes attempted to snap him back to reality a few times with small nudges and waving her hand in front of his face, and of course Mr Carson had more than a few words to say about Jimmy’s behaviour but it fell on deaf ears; he was gliding through the day like a ghost.

By the time he got into bed that night his fingers were ragged with torn skin and specks of blood from all the absent-minded gnawing he had done to them throughout the day. He lay in bed, his mind racing; he had no idea how to find Thomas and that made him feel sick with panic, but then there was the secret, this enormous weight hanging on his shoulders and tugging at his insides. How long had Thomas been sitting on that secret? Letting it eat away at him. How could Jimmy not have seen what was happening? How could he not have prevented all of this somehow?

Jimmy didn’t find the answers to those questions before he fell into a deep and fitful sleep, filled with dreams of Thomas screaming out for help.

 

***

 

Jimmy was half asleep at the servants’ table when Carson came in the next morning.

“His Lordship will be arriving back from his trip very shortly, Mr Mosley, James, be there to receive him and his luggage.” Carson frowned at Jimmy as he gave his instructions; he had little time for what he saw as juvenile melodrama.

“Chop chop!” He shouted close to Jimmy’s face and clapped his hands, as if it would somehow knock the sleep out of his eyes.

Jimmy scowled at him but got up and made his way to the front of the estate. Mosley walked about four paces in front of him with a slight spring in his step.

 

They stood in silence in front of the estate for a time, the wind whipping through Jimmy’s hair, unravelling any sort of half hearted combing of it he had attempted that morning. He watched as a motor car appeared in the distance and it suddenly occurred to him that he had no plan on how to confront Lord Grantham about Thomas.

Late last night it had seemed like a good idea to throw his Lordship against a wall and shout in his face and yet now in the cold light of day and his car approaching ever nearer, it seemed less than perfect.

His heart pounded ferociously and blood thumped in his ears as the car slowed and pulled to a stop in front of them. Bates stepped out of the vehicle and opened the door for Lord Grantham, who looked up at Jimmy and Mosley and gave them a small nod and a smile.

Jimmy felt a rush of anger suddenly consume him and he had to clench his jaw so tightly it hurt to stop it bubbling out of him.

 

Mosley was already at the motorcar, retrieving a trunk, Jimmy still hadn’t moved from the spot in front of the door to the abbey and Robert was walking towards him.

_Now’s your chance, say something, say something, say anything!_

Jimmy opened his mouth to speak and despite no words coming out, he captured the attention of Robert, who was now staring at him expectantly. Just as the silence was becoming achingly noticeable between them, Mary seemingly leapt out of nowhere towards her father.

“Papa!” Her face was beaming and she leant in to give him a cheek before looping her arm around his and walking with him back inside.

“You’ve missed quite the drama, you know” Jimmy heard Mary saying as a frowning Bates thrust a suitcase into Jimmy’s arms and nudged him inside.

“Is that so? What trouble have you been causing then?” Robert smiled teasingly. Mary rolled her eyes but smiled, “I’ve been on my best behaviour of course, as _always_!”

They stopped in the open hallway in front of the grand twirling staircase that led to their rooms.

“It’s Thomas actually, he fled in the night, left everyone quite in the lurch you see…”

Robert’s face dropped instantly and the colour seemed to drain from his face. Jimmy stood a close distance behind the pair, carefully eyeing Robert, clenching hard onto the trunk he was holding so that his knuckles were white.

“Thomas? Thomas Barrow?” Robert interrupted Mary’s continuing spiel about the estate.

“Yes, I know, not his usual style of antics is it?” She smiled, “Anyway, not to worry, I expect Carson is already seeking a replacement.”

“Why did he leave? Did he say?” Robert’s voice was suddenly very serious, a cold stare searching Mary’s face for answers she didn’t have.

She looked taken aback by his reaction and smiled nervously.

“I don’t know…” She trailed off.

The rest of the family were now arriving in the hall to greet him but their smiles and outstretched arms were ignored by Robert ,whose eyes were wide with panic.

 

“Darling!” Cora’s face lit up upon seeing her husband and she placed a hand on his shoulder. He flinched and turned around quickly to look at her.

“Is it true? Did he leave?” He held on to her arms, his fingers quivering slightly as they clasped to her.

“Did who- “

“Cora, please, not now! Thomas! Did he leave? Yes or no?”

Robert’s voice grew louder out of increased desperation and frustration.

Cora simply nodded, her eyes shooting to the floor.

Robert took a step back in shock, “No, no, no, no!” he shook his head frantically.

“Why would he leave? Why?” He shouted, his face reddening.

 

“My God, you are unbelievable!” The words flew out of Jimmy’s mouth before he had even known what he had said.

The first inclination that those had even been _his_ words came when suddenly all eyes turned towards him.

“Excuse me?” Robert looked half perplexed, half outraged.

The adrenaline stormed through Jimmy’s veins and he no longer cared about holding back. He dropped the trunk he had been holding and stepped closer towards Robert, heart pounding.

“You. You’re absolutely unbelievable! You know why he’s gone! This is all down to you, every last thing!” Jimmy shouted at Robert, seemingly losing awareness of his surroundings completely.

“I beg your pardon!”

“All he ever wanted was for somebody to love and accept him and you were too bloody selfish to even give him that!”

The anger slipped from Robert’s face and he stared at Jimmy in shock, the penny finally dropping that he was privy to his secret.

 

“How dare you speak to my father like that!” Mary moved between the two men in an attempt to diffuse the situation, “You must have actually gone mad!” she snapped at Jimmy.

Edith stood to the side of Robert, next to Cora who was sheepishly still staring at the ground.

“Papa, what is he talking about?” Edith asked, rather more calmly than her sister but with worry etched deeply into her face.

Jimmy let out a slightly manic laugh, “They don’t even know, do they?”

Robert said nothing, paralysed by fear.

“Know what?” Edith asked

“Oh be quiet Edith, really! There’s nothing to know! He’s completely lost it!” Mary insisted though she seemed to be convincing herself as well as Edith now.

“Shall I tell them or do you want to?” Jimmy smiled wryly.

“Come on, Jimmy, is this really the place?” Cora stepped in, trying all too late to intervene.

“Oh good, she knows then. So it’s just your daughters who don't? At least you’re treating all your children equally.” Jimmy sneered, ignoring Cora.

There was a silence that must have lasted no more than 10 seconds yet seemed to stretch on infinitely.

“I’ll tell them then, as you won’t”

“Don’t!”

He turned determinedly towards Edith.

“You have an older brother, his name’s Thomas. Thomas Barrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agh, yes, I know, I am the worst updater in the history of the world- I'm really sorry!   
> Thank you all for your lovely comments, I read absolutely every one (sometimes multiple times) and they mean the world to me. Thank you all for sticking with me even though I am the tortoise of fanfic...


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fall out after Jimmy's revelation...and there's a whole lot of fall out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're eyes do not deceive you, I am indeed updating at the pace of a normal human being!!

 

11

 

A long aching silence followed. Jimmy's words clung to the air like thick liquid poison.

It was Mary finally cracked the silence with a small laugh of disbelief,

"He's gone mad! I told you! Tell him Papa!"

A disjointed smile did its best to carve its way on to her face but her darting eyes gave away the panic stewing inside her.

Robert opened his mouth and closed it again, failing to find any words, his legs anchored to the spot.

“Papa?!”

“I- I’m sorry” Robert finally let out, as though it had taken every ounce of energy he had within him to get the words out.

“What?!” Mary’s eyes widened, she looked a strangely terrifying combination of rage, terror and distress and Jimmy couldn’t help but think about how she looked like Thomas in that moment.

“Oh god” Edith gasped, her hand trembling as she covered her mouth with it, deathly pale, as though she might collapse or vomit or both.

Robert took a step closer to Jimmy suddenly; his jaw clenched “You happy now?” He hissed, his face red.

“Have you heard yourself? _You_ are the one with the secret child; _you_ are the one who blackmailed him into leaving. Thank God Thomas _did_ leave, Lord knows I would too if I had a father as pathetic and cowardly as you”

With that, Robert lost control and threw Jimmy thundering into the wall behind him, his fists grasping handfuls of Jimmy’s collar.

“Papa! Leave him!” Edith cried, running towards the pair. Robert didn’t move, he glared at Jimmy, panting, his nostrils flared. 

“For God’s sake Papa, haven’t you caused enough damage?” Mary pushed her father away with the remaining strength she had, her eyes slightly red with the familiar glaze of tears forming a thin veil over her eyes.

Robert stumbled and let go of Jimmy.

“Get out of my house” he snarled at Jimmy.

“Oh with pleasure, as if I’d want to spend one more minute here, serving you” Jimmy brushed himself off, kicked the trunk he’d been carefully holding only minutes before and stormed down stairs followed hastily by Mosley who had been awkwardly standing in the background.

“Drawing room. Now.” Mary demanded.

 

***  


“You’ve got to be joking me! Thomas? Thomas Barrow? Never!”

The servants’ kitchen was chaos. Anna was staring opened mouthed as Mosley recounted the story, Daisy was barging in with more inappropriate questions than one would have thought possible, Mrs Patmore was shaking her head incessantly and saying “well I never” over and over again and Baxter had run after Jimmy who had stormed off to his bedroom.

“Good God” Mrs Hughes finally breathed once Mosley finished his tale, she had a hand raised to her forehead and another clutching her stomach as her insides twisted and clenched.

“The poor boy!” Her lip was quivering and she had gone as pale as her already alabaster skin would allow.

“What, you’re saying you didn’t already know? I thought you knew his mother?” Daisy asked, her usual tactlessness in tact despite the drama of the situation.

“No, I did not!” Snapped Mrs Hughes, “And you can watch your tone young lady, whatever has happened today-“

She was cut off mid-sentence by the rather large presence of Mr Carson “Why, might I ask, has everyone abandoned their duties? Has this house dissolved into absolute anarchy?”

Everyone turned to look at him silently, nobody wanting to be the one to try to put what had happened into words and yet all wanting to see his reaction.

Eventually Mrs Hughes sighed, realising that of course the duty would fall to her, she went to his side and put a hand gently on his arm,

“Might I have a word…in private?”

Mr Carson looked slightly concerned but nodded and led the way to his office.

“A few things have…come to light, shall we say, that have rather thrown the house into kilter” She said once they were inside, trying to search her head for the right words.

“Go on”

“Well…I’m not really sure how to put this really so I’ll just say it…Thomas – Mr Barrow…well, he’s- he’s Lord Grantham’s son.” She held her breath slightly and searched his face for a reaction. Carson paused momentarily, seemingly going through the sentence in his mind word by word and then let out a hearty laugh.

“Really Elsie, I’ve never heard something quite so preposterous!”

“You think I would fabricate such a story?”

“Well, no, of course not, but there’s clearly been a misunderstanding!”

“I can assure you there has not” She said earnestly, gently clasping his lower arm, “I know it’s a shock, it was for me too”

“But, but, how can this be? His lordship is so… and Thomas, he’s…well he’s…you know what he’s like, you know what he _is_. It just doesn’t make any sense!” Carson gesticulated wildly as though to emphasise what distress this was causing him.

“Well unfortunately nature doesn’t take into account your personal feelings about someone when it comes to lineage, so you’ll just have to accept the facts as they are I’m afraid.” Mrs Hughes removed her hand from Carson’s arm; as much as she loved the man, his rather pig-headed dislike for Thomas was not a trait of his that she found she could tolerate easily.

“Right, I need to go sort out that rabble in there before we descend into absolute chaos.” She sighed, exiting the room and leaving Mr Carson in a state of shock, his mouth still slightly gaping.

 

***  


“Cora,” Robert pulled gently on his wife’s arm as they walked with their daughters to the drawing room, “when you gave him the letter, did he read it there in front of you? Was he angry? Did he say anything?”

“I- “ Cora stopped, she didn’t know how to continue that sentence, couldn’t think of a way to phrase the truth that would not tear his world apart, “We should talk about this later, I think we should focus on explaining to the girls right now.”

Cora hurried slightly ahead, in the hope that somehow that question would fade from Robert’s mind if she didn’t get too close to him.

Before Robert had a chance to further press Cora, they were in the drawing room and his two daughters were looking at him expectantly. He heaved a sigh and poured himself more whiskey than was advisable before gulping it down and turning to face the truth.

“I…I don’t quite know where to begin” He stuttered, looking down into his empty glass.

“How about at the beginning, Papa, I find that usually works quite well” Mary retorted sharply, perched on the armchair, her eyes steely as they stared through her father.

“Right, well, I... It was a long time ago you see, I was young and foolish and your mother and I had not long been married. We weren’t quite…we hadn’t quite fallen in love yet and we weren’t getting along all too well and so your mother returned to America for a while to stay with your grandmother. While she was away…we hired a new maid- Thomas’s mother, Hettie, Hettie Barrow.”

Robert paused and went to pour himself another drink, his hands trembling as adrenaline coursed uncontrollably through his veins.

“I fell for her almost right away and I suppose she fell for me too…it was all a bit of a whirlwind, you know, young love and…and before we knew it, she was pregnant…I fully intended to raise him as my own, I never _wanted_ him to grow up without me, but after your mother returned we all realised that wasn’t realistic and so he was raised by his mother, but I insisted that they stayed here, I made sure he had everything he needed, that he had a good education, I always kept an eye on him, I just couldn’t…it wasn’t…it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, you must know that and I never meant to hurt _any_ of you.”

Robert stopped, slightly out of breath, his insides becoming uncoiled of tension for the first time in years- the secret was out.

 

His daughters simply stared at him for a period of time that to Robert felt like years.

“How could you do that?” Edith finally spoke up, her voice was trembling and high pitched, bound to give way to a sob at any moment, “To mama, to Thomas, to _us_?”

“My darling, I had no choice”

“Of course you did! There’s always a choice! You just chose not to take it!” Tears were very clearly forming in her eyes now, seeping into pools that threatened to overflow.

“I was under a lot of pressure, I’m not saying it was an excuse but I had the expectations of my parents, of society, of being a husband to uphold!”

Edith opened her mouth to reply but Mary spoke across her, her body rigid as she looked to her mother, “You knew, didn’t you?”

“Yes…” Cora whispered, her voice barely reaching the armchair the girls were sitting on.

“And you did nothing?”

“Mary, don’t go blaming your mother, none of this is her fault”

Cora felt a pang of guilt in her stomach as her husband came to defend her, she didn’t feel she deserved it after the part she had played in Thomas’s departure.

“And Thomas, how long has he known?” Mary demanded, looking back to her father.

“A matter of days I presume, he asked me about it the day I had to leave for London.”

 

There was another stunned silence, punctuated by sighs, rubbings of foreheads, looks of desperation and confusion.

“Sybil never knew” Mary said, she was staring in a daze at the ground and the words tripped off her lips accidentally as they raced through her mind.

“What?”

“She never knew that Thomas was her brother, she died never knowing…”

“That’s right” Robert whispered guiltily.

“I always thought it was strange” Mary continued, as if Robert had said nothing at all, “The way they seemed to get on, she always seemed to like him and I thought that was just the way Sybil was, always seeing the best in people…but that wasn’t it, was it? They were siblings, they had that sibling bond…” She finally pulled her eyes away from the spot she had been looking at on the floor and looked back up at her father, “You took that away from her.”  
“Mary!” Her mother warned, raising an eyebrow.

“No, no, you’re right, I did…I took that from all of you and I’m sorry but I realise that isn’t enough and now Thomas is gone and I may never get the chance to make things right with him” Robert’s voice cracked as he trailed off and he quickly wiped away a tear which had crept its way into his eye.

Mary sighed and got up from the sofa and put an arm around her father, “Don’t talk like that, Papa, we’ll find him- we’ve already lost one sibling, we’re not going to lose another, isn’t that right, Edith?” Mary said stoically, turning to give a weak smile to her sister.

“Of course” Edith smiled faintly back and stood up to join the pair.

Robert smiled appreciatively, more tears collecting in his eyes, “Thank you” he mustered, swallowing back his tears “but where do we even begin, he could be anywhere!”

“Well, I think Jimmy might be as good a place to start as any!” Mary offered, Robert nodded reluctantly and turned, ready to go, “I think you might best leave that to me after what happened earlier, hmm?”

 

***  


“Jimmy, will you stop for just second!” Baxter pleaded, pulling clothes out of Jimmy’s suitcase just as fast as he was putting them in.

“Give me that.” He snapped, pulling a shirt out of Baxter’s hand.

“This isn’t going to solve anything, this isn’t going to get Thomas back!”

Jimmy stopped pulling on the shirt and slumped onto his bed.

“Lord, this is such a mess.” He sighed, rubbing his forehead.

Baxter folded the shirt and sat down carefully next to Jimmy, “We can’t have Thomas coming home and you not being here,” she said warmly, “I expect he’d turn straight back out of the door in fact.” She smiled.

“We don’t even know he’s coming back.” Jimmy said quietly

“Don’t be silly, where’s an attitude like that going to get you, ey?”

“You don’t understand” Jimmy shook his head and looked down at his hands as his fingers pulled at the jagged skin around his thumb nail, “I saw him- the night he left, I saw him and I could have stopped him but I didn’t.”

“Well how were you to know he was going to leave?”

“But I did…like I said, he left me a letter, but I read it before he left and I spoke to him, asked him to stay…”

“Oh Jimmy,” Baxter sighed sympathetically and gave his arm a small stroke filled with empathy, “and that’s when he told you about Lord Grantham?”

“No.” He covered his face with his hand, avoiding showing any emotion but his voice was hollow and weak, “No, I sort of guessed…he told me he was in love with me and I just…I didn’t…I couldn’t –“

“Hey, come on, you know that’s not why he left, it’s not your fault he went, he would have gone no matter what you had said to him.”

“But if I’d just told him that…that…you know”

“You can’t force yourself to feel something you don’t, Jimmy. You can’t help not loving Thomas, just like Thomas can’t help loving you.”

Jimmy scowled, “Will people stop telling me what I do and do not feel about Thomas!”

“Come on, Jimmy, you know I didn’t – “

Baxter was interrupted mid-sentence by a knock on Jimmy’s door.

“If that’s Carson, I swear to God…” Jimmy started, gritting his teeth and glaring at the door.

“I hope I’m not interrupting”

The door edged gently open and Lady Mary stood in its opening looking somewhat out of place.

“Christ!” Jimmy bolted upright from the bed and frantically tucked his shirt into his trousers where it had fallen out from slouching.

“You shouldn’t be up here! I mean…not shouldn’t but…it’s not appropriate…” Jimmy floundered and Mary stifled a smile.

“No more inappropriate than my brother spending his whole life up here I should imagine”

“Yes…uh, fair point I suppose” Jimmy answered awkwardly, still standing a distance from where Mary stood, his hair a rumpled mess from running his hands repeatedly through it.

“I wondered if I might have a moment alone with Jimmy?” Mary turned to Baxter who politely nodded before silently leaving the room.

“Are you going somewhere?” Mary asked, eyeing Jimmy’s trunk, which lay on the bed amongst a pile of creased clothing, “My father didn’t mean what he said about you leaving,” she continued before he had a chance to reply, “he just let his emotions get the better of him, but he doesn’t really want you to go.”

“Oh, I’m- I’m not, I’m just, uh, just having a- umm- a general…rummage?” Jimmy said unconvincingly. Mary raised one eyebrow but nodded.

“May I?” Mary asked, pulling out the small wooden chair that was tucked underneath his desk, Jimmy nodded and sat opposite her, perched on the bed.

“I’m sorry- about the way I handled things earlier, that wasn’t fair of me” Jimmy said quietly, not daring to look Mary properly in the eye.

“Let’s not talk about that now,” she smiled, “I came to talk to you because we all want the same thing here- Thomas home and we need your help with that.”

“Me? I can’t tell you anything, I don’t know where he is!” Jimmy said, his tone suddenly cool and distant.

“Listen, Jimmy, I know he has an odd way of showing it but I know my father, I know that he loves Thomas just as much as you do but he can’t make anything right with him unless we find him.”

Jimmy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “The most I know is that it looks like he got the sleeper to London the night he left but he could be anywhere by now.”

“Well that’s somewhere to start at least!” Mary said encouragingly.

 

The two spoke a while longer about possibilities and next steps before Mary left to go back to her family and Jimmy was alone once more.

 

***  


But finding a man in London is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The days melted slowly into weeks and those blended into months. A week after Thomas had left, Jimmy bought a packet of the cigarettes Thomas smoked and stood in the courtyard lighting them one by one and just taking in the smell of the smoke to remind him of something that had once felt like comfort. Eight days after Thomas left Jimmy began smoking the cigarettes so that he could carry the smell with him.

 

He drifted through the days aimlessly, perturbed by how affected he was by Thomas’s absence but mainly simply missing his company. He saved up and used his days off to travel to London knowing full well that he would not find Thomas but finding comfort in the idea that he was doing something.

 

Ten days after Thomas’s departure, Robert rang the police to report some stolen jewellery taken by a servant called Thomas Barrow. A plan concocted by Mary who felt that missing valuables would be seen as more pressing than a missing servant to the establishment and so more likely to lead to Thomas’s return.

 

Three weeks after Thomas left Mary discovered that Jimmy had been making the same visits to London as her and her family had regularly been making and insisted that from then on they would make the trips together.

 

And so for the next five months the house fell into an odd but familiar routine. The estate ran as normal on the weekdays but once night fell Edith and Mary would spend long periods of time writing letters to various important contacts across the country, Robert would use the telephone to make enquiries or he would shut himself in his room and write long, soul-bearing letters to Thomas to add to his treasure box of memories. Cora did her best to keep busy with the hospital to stop the guilt from eating her up inside and helped her husband and her children when she could. Jimmy and the Crawleys spent most weekends travelling to London, scouring the different boroughs, scavenging for any sort of sign of Thomas but growing less and less hopeful as each month passed.

 

Five months and twenty-four days after Thomas had left, Robert got a call from the police.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thank you to everyone who commented last time, all such lovely things! And thank you all for being so understanding about my slow updates! You're all great and spurred me on to actually write this in a semi-timely fashion so BIG thanks!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning that this chapters contains some period-typical homophobia and a bit of violence so please avoid if you think that it's likely to upset you- I really wouldn't anyone to be affected badly by anything I've written.

 

12

 

Thomas woke slowly, his cheek numb against the cold stone floor, a small pool of saliva that was tinted red with his blood spilled out from his mouth; he could taste the coppery sting in the back of his throat.

He tentatively pulled himself up and leaned against the rough brick of the wall behind him, coughing slightly. Outside he could hear the faint chirping of birds singing and a thin gold stream of light stretched its way into the room and across the floor. He faintly smiled; at least spring was on its way, the dark nights would soon grow shorter, there would be light at the end of the tunnel. He stretched forward with some effort and placed his gloveless injured hand into the sunbeam, sending a mass of dust particles swirling. A faint jagged scar across his knuckles seemed to almost glimmer in the light and his heart leapt slightly as he thought of the day he’d got that scar; punching that mirror, Jimmy gently placing his hand under the running tap… He tried to push the thought of his mind and instead enjoyed the small amount of warmth the light allowed him.

“Barrow!”

There was a booming voice calling him and he could hear footsteps along the tiled corridor and the jangling of keys. He looked up and saw a man standing the other side of his cell. He had small dark eyes with heavy purple bags underneath that were almost twice the size of his actual eyes and thick dark eyebrows that curved downwards slightly. With a clanking of metal against metal, he opened the door to Thomas’s cell.

“Get up”

His facial expression and intonation didn’t change when he spoke, which was almost more disconcerting than being confronted by an angry face and shouting.

Thomas pulled himself up from the floor with some difficulty, clutching his ribs, which seared with pain every time he moved.

The man snapped some handcuffs on Thomas and walked him to a dark room, just as cold as Thomas’s cell, with a desk, covered in papers and two chairs. The man sat down and Thomas sat opposite him; this wasn’t their first meeting.

“So,” the man leant back in his chair and pulled a cigarette from a packet in his pocket, “we barely know each other. Do we Barrow?” he smiled menacingly as his lit the cigarette and took a drag. “So why don’t you tell me where you come from?”

Thomas stared at him but did not reply, he knew how this worked; they didn’t want you to reply, they liked imagining their own answers, it was all part of the game for them.

“Hmm? You gone shy on me, Barrow?”

He let out a little laugh when Thomas said nothing again.

“You see, I’m no expert on accents but I can tell you aren’t from round here” He got up from his seat, flicking specks of ash as he paced behind Thomas.

“From Yorkshire are you? Just a guess…”

Even without seeing his face, Thomas could hear the smirk in his voice, the deliberate toying.

He finally snapped when Thomas still did not answer and grabbed him suddenly and roughly by his hair that had grown slightly longer in his time inside.

“I’m talking to you, pretty boy!”

Thomas winced, “Yes, sir” his voice croaky from lack of use, “Yorkshire.”

The man seemed satisfied with that and released his grip, pushing Thomas’s head as he did.

“And what did you do up in Yorkshire?”

The man came back into Thomas’s view, he remained standing but propped his foot up on the seat of his chair. He scooped up the papers on the desk and stubbed out his cigarette on the table.

“No, no, don’t tell me,” he grinned, enjoying whatever game he thought he was playing. He squinted a little at the paper he was holding, “A servant, was it? At…Downton Abbey?” He said the name of the estate slowly as if reading it for the first time, unsure of the correct pronunciation.

Thomas frowned at him, unsure as to how, after all this time, this had suddenly come to light and, more importantly, what relevance it had.

“Except you left, didn’t you? After you stole some of their jewellery” He smirked, proudly, then let out a purposefully over dramatic gasp and tutted a little.

“Jewellery?”

“That’s what the arrest warrant says, Barrow, but then again, we could have the wrong person couldn’t we- let’s check” He said completely insincerely as he flipped through the wad of papers. “Description of perpetrator,” He read aloud, “Thomas Barrow, mid 30s, approximately 6 foot, medium build, black hair, blue eyes _and_ ” he paused and grabbed hold of Thomas’s injured wrist suddenly “distinctive markings- large scar on palm of right hand sustained from a gun shot wound during the great war.” He forcibly turned Thomas’s hand over and pulled it open where it had been clenched shut, laying it flat on the desk.

He grinned upon seeing the thick angry scar emblazoned across Thomas’s palm.

“I’d say that was a pretty good match, wouldn’t you?”

 

***  


Robert got the call on Tuesday evening after dinner. He hardly believed the words he heard through the receiver and he stood for several minutes after the phone call just standing, swaying slightly as he took it all in. Then he was power walking down the corridor, breaking into a small jog before opening the door to the drawing room where his wife and daughters were sitting.

“That was the police” a small smile crept on his face as he began speaking, “they’ve found Thomas, in London, he’s in custody right now”

Mary and Edith jumped up from where they had been sitting and hugged their father, shocked smiles on their faces.

“Well can we see him?” Edith asked, pulling away from her father, tears pooling in her eyes.

“I think it best if I go down there alone first- I’ve got some explaining to do really” A brief wave of sadness cast over his face as he recalled seeing Thomas for the last time all those months ago and the pain he had caused…but that was the past now, he told himself, he would make things right now.

“I should tell Jimmy!” Mary suddenly said, pulling Robert's thoughts back into the room.

“Really Mary, you shouldn’t keep going down into the servant’s quarters, you must be setting them all on edge the amount you’re down there”

Cora’s voice came weakly from behind the trio who had almost forgotten that she was there.

“Nonsense, mama! They barely notice I’m there, anyway, it’s only fair; Jimmy’s been looking for Thomas just as long as we have!” She smiled, scuttling away before her mother could say anything more on the matter. Cora sighed, her eyebrows curved upwards, filled with anxiety.

“I should start packing” Robert said, kissing Edith on the top of her head before turning to leave.

“Darling, wait,” Cora called “Edith, would you give me a moment with your father please?”

Edith nodded; too busy thinking about Thomas to notice how worried her mother looked.

The door shut and Robert and Cora were left alone.

Robert moved closer to Cora and wrapped his arms around her in a warm embrace,

“I can’t quite believe it, Cora, I had almost started to believe I would never see him again.”

Cora gently broke from the embrace and looked up at her husband, insides knotting and unknotting, “I have to tell you something”

“What is it? Are you not well?”

“No, no, nothing like that…it’s about Thomas”

She looked at him anxiously and he met her gaze with concern.

“The letter you gave me, I lied- I never gave it to him, I…I burned it – “

“You did _what_? Why?”

“I don’t know, I panicked, I thought that if he knew that you wanted him here then everything would change! The girls wouldn’t be as important to you- I wouldn’t be as important to you…“

Robert stepped away from Cora and rubbed his face in disbelief and annoyance,

“So you were jealous? And your solution to that was to tarnish any hope I had of a relationship with him?”

Robert was red in the face with anger.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I never wanted you to hurt like this” She said through tears.

“I don’t have time for this,” Robert spat “I have to pack.” He turned and opened the door –

“Robert, wait!”

She ran forward and grabbed hold of his arm and he turned to look at her, anger and pain in his eyes.

“There’s more”

So Cora told him about how Violet had blackmailed Thomas into leaving, threatened him and Jimmy and how Cora had known this and done nothing to stop it. The words flowed faster than Cora could think, months of secret-keeping bubbling to the surface and overflowing. Finally she stopped and looked anxiously up at her husband.

Robert was red in the face, eyes wide, “I have to go.” He said quietly after some time.

“Is that it? You’re not going to say anything else?” Cora looked desperately at him, as if she wanted him to be angry rather than whatever he was at that moment.

“My heart is broken, Cora, by the two women who claim to love me the most- what more is there to be said?”

He turned again finally and walked weakly out of the room, half the man he had been when he had first burst in with the good news.

 

***  
  


Jimmy sat on his bed, legs dangling off the edge, biting at the skin around his fingernails, which had become increasingly ragged in the months after Thomas had left. He faced the blank wall in front of him and thought of what Mary had just told him; _Thomas has been found. He’s in a prison in London._ All those months of searching and hoping and there it was- an answer and yet somehow he still felt just as empty, his heart still ached and he still felt like somebody had punched him in the stomach and stolen his breath and he didn’t know why.

He sighed and flopped backwards onto the bed. He stared at the ceiling until his eyes saw double and he could imagine it was the night sky, sprinkled with twinkling stars and a chalky moon. He closed his eyes and he could feel the winter’s wind whipping around him, the unbuttoned shirt he’d thrown on in haste billowing around him, icy cold pummelling his chest…and then there was _him_ -eyes sparkling yet filled with fear, jet black hair unusually unkempt –

He pulled his eyes open forcefully, the memory too painful to continue going over and yet one that he had run over in his mind every night since.

He rolled over and stretched to pick up a packet of cigarettes that were lying on his bedside table. He lay onto his back again and ran his fingers over the packet with a sigh before pulling a cigarette out and placing it between his lips. He lit it and took a long drag. He knew he’d be in trouble if he was caught smoking in his room but he didn’t care, he needed something more than just memories to get by this evening. But his mind soon wandered and he wrestled with imagined ideas of what Thomas had thought of that night and whether he hated Jimmy for following him that night, for making him feel unloved and for dealing the final blow of finding out his secret.

Three cigarettes and ten badly bitten fingers later, he was asleep on top of the covers, still fully dressed.

 

 

***  
  


Thomas had barely slept that night, he’d been too preoccupied in his thoughts, wondering what he could possibly have done wrong to warrant the Crawleys ringing the police with false accusations about theft; he’d done what they’d asked, he’d left, he hadn’t told anyone the reason why…though Jimmy had seemed to have worked it out – maybe that was it, maybe Jimmy had told everyone and they’d been angry at him? He couldn’t settle on an idea that made him feel at ease and the more he thought about it, the more he worried about Jimmy, remembering that the Dowager had threatened his freedom too should he stay around and so he endured a fitful night filled with visions of Jimmy wasting away, lonely and confused in a freezing cell.

He was woken by the rattling of metal bars and the shouting of his name early the next morning. Through bleary eyes he saw a different officer to the one who had summoned him yesterday; he had dark blonde hair and a thick set jaw with thin lips that seemed to spread an inch too long into his cheeks.

Thomas had learnt a while ago now that you didn't question being hauled out of your cell, in fact you didn't question anything the officers did; the moment you walked into that prison, was the moment you lost any autonomy.

He was dragged upwards, handcuffed and pulled out of the cell. They traipsed down corridors and through doorways wordlessly, the crashing and shouts of the prison echoing off the cold stone walls. Thomas's head felt heavy and pounded at the temples; he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept for more than two hours at a time and as a result he felt in a constant dream like state, unaware of what time and what date it was.

Finally they turned a corner and Thomas froze, glued to the spot. The guard shoved him forward, a sharp elbow to the back but Thomas barely even swayed, it was like he had been tethered at his feet by ropes buried deep beneath the ground. The guard turned and faced him head on and gave him a hard knock to the ribs where he'd been kicked only days previously, "Move it!"

The pain made Thomas clutch his side and in that moment of weakness the guard managed to heave him forward and thrust him forcefully into a waiting chair.

"Thomas!"

Robert was sitting in the chair opposite. He looked at Thomas, his first instinct had been to feel uncontrollably happy upon seeing him and yet now he was up close, he felt sudden overwhelming wave of guilt and fear.

Thomas looked very different to how he'd appeared on their last meeting; his jet-black hair, which everyone had become so used to seeing perfectly slicked back, had grown longer and thicker, poking out from beneath his ears and cascading into his eyes. He was paler and thinner too but perhaps most jarring was the constellation of cuts and bruises that crossed his face; dried blood lined his nostrils, his lip was split and his right eye was shining black and blue with a cut running through his eyebrow.

“My God, what have they done to you? Are you alright?”

“Why are you here?” Thomas asked ignoring Robert’s questions, talking as if enquiring about the time of day or musing about the weather, trying to hold himself like he remembered doing when he still felt worth something.

“Thomas, I am so incredibly sorry,” Thomas’s façade broke and he frowned at Robert, “Cora told me last night about what happened whilst I was away but I need you to know, I had no part in that. I never wanted you to leave.”

“What?” Thomas asked shakily, a pang of hurt in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m so sorry, truly, not just for that, but for everything- I only ever wanted the best for you.”

“It was all for nothing?” Thomas asked quietly, more to himself than to Robert, eyes darting around as he took it in, “Running away, sleeping rough, months in prison…for nothing?”

“ _Months_? They only called me yesterday I would have come sooner –“

Thomas let out a small laugh, “You think all of this is because of a few jewels?” He gestured to the mess that had become his face, “No, _this_ \- this is for gross indecency”

“Gross indecency?” Robert recoiled, “What on earth were you doing?”

Thomas smiled thinly, “I can only presume being indecent…grossly so”

Robert frowned at Thomas whose smiled reluctantly dropped,

“Don’t make me spell it out.” He pleaded, looking down at his hands lying in his lap, “I know you hate me for being... that way…but it wasn’t indecent – _I’m_ not indecent.”

“Oh Thomas” Robert’s eyes filled with pain as he realised what Thomas was talking about.

“So it all worked out in the end you see; you get to live in your perfect house with your perfect wife and your perfect daughters and you can go back to pretending that I don’t exist.”

“That’s not what I want, I want you back home with me and the girls- we all do!”

Thomas snorted with laughter, “Oh yes, let’s all sit around the fire like a perfect little family, shall we? Are you going to wave your magic wand and make us all live happily ever after?”

“No, of course not but I – “

“People like me don’t get a happy ending, you do realise that? We end up alone or in prison or _dead_ but we don’t get to live happily ever after.”

Robert looked at Thomas as though he had just stabbed him through the heart.

“We’ll get you out of here, we’ll find a way.”

“So you can ease your guilt?”

“Thomas, please don’t be like this.” Robert sighed weakly

There was a pause of silence, enough for Thomas to be hit by an overwhelming feeling of hurt at all he had lost out on throughout his life and the enormity of the situation.

“Just go” He spat out, biting back the tears that threatened to fall.

“Thomas – “

“No, go!” Thomas shouted, struggling to pull himself out of the chair without the full using of his arms.

Robert sprang out of his chair and started towards him but the guard who had been hovering close by shot in front of him and slammed Thomas hard into the wall.

Thomas felt his cheek bone burn with pain and he briefly thought about the size of the bruise that would cause.

“Where the hell are you going?” The guard hissed at Thomas.

“You’re hurting him! Let him go!” Thomas could hear Robert shouting at the guard.

“It’s the best way to treat these ones, sir” the guard responded before leaning into Thomas and saying under his breath, “got to treat vermin, like vermin- haven’t you?”

Thomas went red, a result of the pain in his cheek, the anger at the situation and the shame of Robert watching him looking so vulnerable and pathetic. He closed his eyes and hoped that somehow all of this would fade away.

“Just – at least bring him away from the wall.”

Robert asked, Thomas could feel that he was closer to him now, standing right behind him trying to reason with the guard and he hated it.

“I told you to go.” Thomas said through gritted teeth, feeling tears clinging to his eyelashes.

“Thomas –“ Robert began softly.

“Leave! Now!” Thomas burst out, shouting.

With that, the guard heaved Thomas angrily off the wall and apologised hastily to Robert before dragging Thomas away.

Robert stood helplessly watching, breathless as his already shattered heart splintered further into pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes! The tortoise did an update- woo! As always, thank you tons and tons and tons for the lovely comments and the kudos, you guys are the best!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas gets another visitor!

13

 

“I suppose you’ll forget all about me when your wife gets back.” She sighed resting her head onto Robert’s chest as they lay in bed.

He stopped stroking her hair with his fingers as he had been doing absentmindedly before, “My darling I could never forget you”

She looked up at him and smiled as he cupped her face with his hands, stroking her jaw line with his thumb. “Everywhere there is beauty; I will see your face, every piece of poetry, every novel I read; I will see only your name and every song I hear; I will hear but the melody of your voice.” He smiled.

She giggled, blushing and buried her face into his neck, her eyelashes fluttering against his skin.

He pressed a kiss onto the top of her head, “You can’t forget the unforgettable, darling.”

She pulled herself up and looked him in the eye, “Robert?”

“Hmm?”

“I have to tell you something”

“Has something happened? Are you alright?” He asked, unable to mask the panic in his voice.

She avoided his gaze and look at her hand that was still resting on him, “No, no, nothing like that – I… promise you won’t be angry?”

“Why would I be angry?” He asked giving her a reassuring smile.

She took a deep breath and then looked back up at him, “I am with child.”

“What?” He went pale and physically jumped backwards, eyes wide.

“I…I’m with –“

“No, sorry, I heard you, I just…how? When?!”

“I’ve known for a few weeks but I was scared to tell you, I didn’t know how you would feel! Do you hate me?”

“ _Hate_ you?” He asked in disbelief, “I could never! I’m just surprised!”

“You’re not going to make me leave?”

“My darling,” He smiled, “of course not!” He beamed, slightly red from a sudden rush of excitement, “Naturally it’s not exactly the ideal circumstances, but we will make it work- you’re my priority now, the two of you…Can I?” He asked, his hands hovering over her ever-growing bump, which she had concealed under her nightdress.

She grinned and nodded and he hesitantly stretched out his hand across the curve of her body. He felt firm bump beneath and looked at her in amazement.

“Oh Hettie!” He laughed happily and pulled her into an embrace –

 

Robert was suddenly jolted from his daydream by a knock at the door.

“Lord Grantham?” A voice came from behind the door.

“Yes, yes, come in” He called, sitting up and hoping he had not been talking out loud accidentally.

A sheepish looking bellboy opened his hotel room door and stood in the doorway, “Your wife and daughters have arrived.”

“Ah, yes, very well, send them up.” Robert nodded distractedly.

The bellboy gave a quick bow of the head and scurried away, shutting the door behind him.

Robert let out a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. His heart ached at the thought of Thomas; his son, the thought of his excitement all those years ago at the idea of his birth and the potential life that lay ahead with all its twists and turns…and now here was that life, grown up and experiencing nothing but pain and suffering.

He stood up from his chair as he heard the voices of his family moving towards the door and greeted Edith and Mary weakly with a kiss on the cheek. Cora appeared behind her daughters looking hesitant. Robert stepped forward to her slightly awkwardly, clearly unsure of how to greet her,

“Thank you for coming” He eventually said numbly and gave her a small squeeze on the arm.

She looked somewhat relieved that he had greeted her at all given his anger the last time they had seen each other.

“The girls insisted on Jimmy coming, he’s waiting downstairs.”

Robert sighed; despite the amount of time they had ended up spending together since Thomas had left, Robert was still not fond of Jimmy. This was largely down to the fact that Jimmy held Robert entirely responsible for everything that had happened and as such often found himself stepping out of line in the way that he spoke to Robert _and_ unfortunately Edith and Mary valued Jimmy’s friendship with Thomas too much to allow their father to dismiss Jimmy and so they found themselves in an odd stalemate full of grumbled asides about each other.

 

“Fine. I’ll get him a room.” Robert said begrudgingly and trudged down into the hotel’s lobby. Jimmy was pacing next to the reception and biting his fingers when Robert approached him.

“Jimmy.” He grunted with a small nod of the head by way of greeting.

Jimmy spun round, “How is he?” He asked desperately, not bothering to respond to Robert.

“Not fantastically, but I suppose that was to be expected…he was quite angry to see me to be perfectly honest; kept asking me to leave”

“Well, what goes around comes around.” Jimmy muttered under his breath, deliberately loud enough for Robert to hear.

“Pardon?” Robert gritted his teeth, trying to keep his cool.

“What, me? Oh, nothing!” Jimmy smiled innocently before involuntarily sneering slightly when he thought Robert couldn’t see.

Robert simply frowned at him but resisted responding.

“I’ll sort you a room,” Robert said gesturing to Jimmy to join him by the desk “and then I wondered if you might want to see Thomas? Try to reason with him?”

“Is that…would he be ok with me going to see him?”

Jimmy seemed slightly taken aback by the suggestion and looked immediately flustered and apprehensive.

“Lord knows, but he needs somebody right now and I’m certain that person isn’t me.”

Jimmy wasn’t about to argue with that but he wasn’t certain he was the right person either; Thomas’s pained expression from the last time he had seen him flashed in front of his eyes.

“Also, I’m going to visit my solicitor today, see how quickly we’re able to get him out” Robert carried on, frowning at a bit of paper he was signing that somebody had passed to him from behind the desk, “I know very little about the night that he was arrested, just what he was charged with, I wondered if you might do a bit of digging?”

“I’m not sure he’d – “

“If we don’t know what we’re dealing with, we’re not going to be able to get him out. You want to get him out, don’t you?”

Jimmy nodded, "Of course, but -"

"Right, then, take your things to your room and then you'll need to get going." Robert said, continuing to ignore Jimmy's obvious hesitance and pushing a rusted metal room key into his hand before turning to leave before Jimmy could protest further.

 ***

 

Thomas slouched in the chair he had sat in the previous day, this time though the seat opposite him was empty. It had been a violent struggle to heave Thomas to the meeting point; he had fully expected to be met with Grantham's patronisingly concerned frown, yet when he had turned the corner and Robert was not sitting there, his heart did sink a little though he didn't fully understand why.

So now he sat, waiting, growing more anxious with each minute that passed without a body occupying that hauntingly empty wooden chair. He gritted his teeth and dug his bitten nails into the skin of his palms; what were they going to do to him?

Just as his breathing started to pace out of control, a figure skidded around the corner. It took a second for Thomas's eyes to adjust and recognise him. Jimmy was standing in front of him, a flustered mess- shirt half untucked, no cufflinks at his cuffs and hair stubbornly sticking up at the back.

A huge smile spread involuntarily across Thomas's face and Jimmy grinned back at him, "Lord, you look awful" Jimmy said, his smile quickly fading as he moved closer to Thomas to take his seat opposite him.

"Nice to see you too, Jimmy!" Thomas laughed, "glad to see you haven't lost any of your charm"

"Sorry" Jimmy smiled guiltily, "it's just a bit of a shock, the...you know" he stumbled gesturing to his face.

"I know" Thomas said sincerely. Feeling a sudden urge to stretch across the table and grab his hands, he clumsily plonked his handcuffed hands on the table before realising that was a terrible idea but Jimmy had already clocked the metal chains and reddened wrists and he was now staring at them in a shocked trance.

"So..." Thomas said a little too loudly in an attempt to redirect the meeting back to some sort of normalcy- if that was even possible- "How's everything back at the abbey? Are you all falling apart without me?"

 _I think I might well be_ , Jimmy thought but he didn’t say, instead he masked 6 months of pain with a mischievous smile, "oh yeah," he said sarcastically "Carson's been in public mourning since you left."

"Ah, I thought so, he's lost without having me there to blame everything on"

"Quite honestly I think he's terrified that any one of us could end up being a long lost relative of Lord Grantham now so he's walking on egg shells."

"Lord, I hope not"

They sat for a moment, smiling, taking in how odd the situation was and yet how happy it felt to be back in each other’s presence.

“How did you know I was here?” Thomas asked, looking perplexed as though it had suddenly dawned on him how strange it was that Jimmy had come, “Did Lord Grantham send you?”

“Well yes” Jimmy looked down at his own hands sheepishly, “but I _wanted_ to come, I’ve spent half the bloody year looking for you, I wasn’t going to just sit around knowing you’d been found.”

“You’ve been looking for me?”

Jimmy nodded, “You owe me one actually, I’ve had to spend an ungodly amount of time in the company of Lord Snooty-face because of you!”

Thomas let out a laugh but still looked slightly bewildered.

“What they’ve charged you with…” Jimmy began awkwardly.

“Don’t, Jimmy.”

Thomas felt a sudden wave of shame sweep over him; he didn’t want to talk about his arrest, especially not with Jimmy.

“I just wanted to – well I… You know, if you wanted to talk about it – “

“I don’t.”

“But if you did – I’m here, you can tell me.”

Jimmy looked at Thomas hopefully, but he just nodded back at him, giving no indication that he had anything further to add.

Jimmy felt his stomach twist and turn in knots, he didn’t want to press the issue and make Thomas upset and he also wasn’t sure he wanted to hear about what had happened.

“Lord Grantham’s gone to see his solicitor about getting you out.”

Jimmy said reluctantly, looking awkwardly down at his hands again.

“What?”

Jimmy looked back up to see Thomas frowning angrily, a faint look of panic in his eyes.

“Don’t’ be angry- he just wants you out of here…we all do.”

“So he wants all the gory details, does he? That’s why he sent you? Thought you could just flutter your eyelashes and I’d tell you everything because that’s how pathetic I am?”

Thomas couldn’t control his anger and his raised voice was causing the guards who had been hovering in the corner, talking amongst themselves, to look over. Jimmy tried desperately to look calm.

“No! Come on, you know it’s not like that!”

Thomas didn’t say anything, but looked painfully into the distance, a glazed over look in his eyes.

“You think you’ve got some sort of power over me because of what I said in that letter the night I left.” He finally said in a broken whisper, his blank stare unwavering.

“That’s not true, Thomas, I promise.” Jimmy felt an instinctive urge to reach out and hold his battered hands but resisted, “I’ve thought of that night over and over”

Thomas started shaking his head, still not looking Jimmy in the eye, begging him silently to not talk about the night he had left.

“I thought you would hate me for saying all the wrong things- I’ve gone over that conversation a thousand times and thought of things I should have said differently or what I could have said to make you stay… I’ve been a _wreck_ quite frankly.”

Jimmy’s words seemed to permeate through to Thomas and he finally turned his head to look at Jimmy again, eyes slightly red but expression giving nothing away otherwise.

Jimmy sighed, “What I’m trying to say is- I don’t think I have any kind of power over you, Thomas- quite the opposite.”

Thomas gave a small silent nod “You won’t be able to get me off.” He finally said, matter-of-factly, “It’s coming down to another man’s word over mine and it turns out a homeless unemployed ex-servant’s word doesn’t count for very much.” He smiled faintly, though the deep sadness within his eyes overshadowed any feigning that he was fine.

“We’ll find a way.” Jimmy said sincerely

Thomas gave a half hearted smile but looked unconvinced.

"Oh I just remembered!" Jimmy suddenly said, patting at his trouser and jacket pockets, "I brought you a present."

Smiling hopefully, he gently pushed a packet of Thomas's preferred brand of cigarettes on the table.

"I'm not allowed these!" Thomas whispered, shooting a glance around but he looked almost giddy with excitement. Jimmy’s insides unknotted at the sight of Thomas looking somewhat happy again.

"I won't tell if you don't!" Jimmy smiled and pulled a cigarette out of the packet and lit a small match from a book of them sitting in his breast pocket, "I'll save them for you" he said, as the blue light of the match flared and ignited the cigarette, "but just have one for now- if anyone says anything, I'll lamp them round the head and make a run for it"

Thomas rolled his eyes but looked very grateful. He tried with difficulty to pick the cigarette up and so without thinking Jimmy lifted it up for him and placed it into Thomas's slightly parted lips. As he did, his fingers grazed Thomas's mouth, sending crackling fireworks down his spine. Thomas smiled and took a long, deep drag. Jimmy's fingers hovered in the air still as if frozen in time, eyes locked on Thomas's lips; they were more cracked now and wore an impressive purple bruise upon them, mingled with blood both old and new, but they were the same lips that Jimmy had kissed 6 months ago, they still belonged to the same man, and Jimmy was almost certain that if it were not for the table between them and the two guards talking in the corner, then he would be making that same mistake again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, once again I have been terrible at updating but I have been plodding along writing this chapter for a while and I thought it was finally time to publish it. In all honesty it was going to be a longer chapter but I realised that was going to take even longer to finish so I stuck with it as it is so apologies for it being quite short.  
> HUGE thank you once again for the comments and kudos, it means the absolute world to me!!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy visits Thomas again and then pays a visit to somebody else...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I cannot even begin to say how sorry I am about how late this update is. There has been a lot going on in my personal life over the last few months but all that time I was still writing bits and pieces and reading your absolutely amazing messages of support which I'm so incredibly grateful for. So this chapter is unfortunately not too long but hopefully you can all forgive me for that.

14

 

It was a week before Jimmy found a way to visit Thomas again. Lord Grantham was busy hatching elaborate plans with important people and was making every effort to keep Jimmy as far away from those plans as possible. He instead spent those seemingly never ending days accompanying the female Crawleys on various expeditions, all of which seemed grotesquely mundane and inappropriate in the light of Thomas’s situation.

“I’m not supposed to be here, you know” Jimmy said, looking quickly over his shoulder on the wet Friday morning he had finally made it to the prison.

“Really? Why’s that?” Thomas frowned, watching Jimmy from across the chipped wooden table.

“Not sure really,” Jimmy shrugged, leaning back in his chair and lighting the cigarette he had been holding for Thomas, “I think Grantham’s probably worried I’ll ruin his grand plan to get you out somehow.” He took a drag of the cigarette and glanced around at the guards to check they weren’t looking before sliding it across the table to Thomas.

“I see and what is this ‘grand plan’ then?”

“Like he’s going to trust me with that sort of information, I just overhear bits and pieces.”

Thomas nodded pensively, exhaling a steady stream of cigarette smoke from between his lips,

“Well I don’t want his help” he said bitterly after a while, gritting his teeth.

“So you’d rather stay in here then?” Jimmy scoffed, “Getting attacked everyday, that’s better is it?” His eyes darted anxiously across Thomas’s battered face, picking up on each new bruise and scratch.

“Better than playing happy families with _him_ ”

“You wouldn’t have to do that.”

“So what then exactly? Go back to being his servant? I should have blackmailed him when I had the chance and run away.”

Jimmy laughed softly, “That _is_ much more your style actually, you missed a trick there.”

Thomas felt himself smiling back at Jimmy with little control over his own movements.

“I’m clearly losing my touch”

“That happens in old age” Jimmy teased, Thomas laughed and rolled his eyes and an easy silence hung between the two of them.

“So what would you have bought me with your blackmail earnings then?” Jimmy asked after a moment, still grinning.

Thomas raised an eyebrow, “And why would I have bought you anything?”

“Because you’re unable to resist my undeniable charm, wit and good looks.” He grinned.

Thomas smiled but looked slightly awkward at how close to the truth Jimmy’s comment was and Jimmy, seemingly having forgotten this in that moment looked suddenly embarrassed as he realised what he had said.

 

The two sat in silence for a moment this time feeling distinctly more awkward, neither knowing how to move the conversation away from the one that was now in both their heads. Jimmy opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again several times before blurting out,

“I wanted to ask-“ knowing that the question would continue to whirl in his mind if he didn’t just ask it.

Thomas looked up expectantly from where he had been staring at the table.

“The man that you were…the man who…you know?” Jimmy stumbled over his words

“I was what?”

“The man you were…the man you were arrested with.” He exhaled as if a sudden force had pushed the words out of him in the end

“Yes?” Thomas seemed slightly amused by Jimmy’s inability to get his words out and let a small smile escape his lips.

“Were you…were you- you know?” Jimmy asked looking pained and flustered and making a flurry of hand gestures that meant nothing.

Thomas snorted, “I swear to God if you don’t start finishing your sentences soon—“

“Ok, ok, were you…together? As in, were you…were you… in love?”

Thomas let out a burst of laughter, sending Jimmy’s cheeks scarlet red though his face remained serious and determined.

“You’re seriously asking me that?” Thomas asked, raising one eyebrow in apparent confusion, still smiling. Jimmy nodded.

“Yes, Jimmy, madly so,” Thomas attempted to say with a straight face though a smirk crept through, “That’s the rule isn’t it? You have to be in love before you go to bed with someone.” He asked with mock innocence.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and pinched the cigarette out of Thomas’s fingers, scratching his head in frustration as he took a frantic drag, “So you were going to bed with him?”

“Good Lord, I hadn’t realised my trial had begun early! There’s not even a jury- that’s hardly fair now is it?”

But Thomas’s playful smile was met with a frown from Jimmy who looked impatient for an answer.

“I barely knew him ok?” Thomas sighed, “We met that night and went back to his house, I got arrested before anything happened. You happy now? Is the interrogation over?”

Jimmy didn’t reply but his frown had ironed out into something that could not be mistaken for a smile, yet was clearly much more at peace than moments earlier.

“Back to what you were going to buy me” Jimmy said, clearly satisfied enough by the answer he had received and deciding it was time to change the subject, “I was thinking just a simple mansion in the countryside…”

Thomas shook his head, a broad smile creeping its way across his face again.

 

Jimmy left the prison with a renewed determination to help Thomas. Which is why he found himself later that evening, having feigned a stomach upset and been excused from attending a painfully dull evening with the family’s distant cousin’s aunt’s brother’s something, raiding Lord Grantham’s room, glancing at the door occasionally to make sure he was not about to be caught. It didn’t take long before he found what he was looking for- a desk with a draw built into it positioned under the window- he took another cursory look around before pulling open the drawer to reveal the stack of papers rammed inside. He had seen Lord Grantham working at this desk numerous times over the past week, occasionally muttering something to himself and scribbling a word or two down before cramming it into the drawer.

 

The pile of papers seemed to be endless; page after page of scrawling handwriting, which looked more like a secret code than English. He began to wonder if Lord Grantham had suspected his plan and had set this chaos as some sort of trap when he finally stopped over a page that caught his attention. This paper was different; it was written up on a typewriter and though it had a few notes along the edges, it was a lot more in tact than the others. It was bundled together with some other papers in a makeshift paper folder, which Jimmy spread out across the desk. He tried to read through the documents one by one but in his frantic desperation the stack of papers fell to the floor. There he noticed the mug shots. One captured a good-looking man, mid-thirties, black hair out of place and a bruise spreading across his left eye. He looked much more like the man Jimmy had seen run away in the moonlit courtyard of the Abbey than the dishevelled shadow he had spoken to that very day. Jimmy stood for a moment, transfixed, holding his thumb gently over the photograph; even in the haze of the black and white pigments Jimmy could see the terror in Thomas’s eyes, which seemed to blaze straight through the camera and outwards towards Jimmy. It made his stomach flip over and ache.

 

Pulling himself together and without thinking he folded the photograph up and placed it in his inside pocket before bending down and picking up the other photograph.

Jimmy glared at the man in the picture and the man appeared to glare right back. He was an older looking man, older than Thomas, even in the sepia tones of the image Jimmy could see the silvery streaks running through his tousled hair. His lip was half curled in an arrogant manner though his eyes seemed to give away a hint of panic that was lurking beneath the surface. He was handsome in a sort of classic way, with his chiselled jaw and jarringly symmetrical face. Jimmy felt a strong urge to punch him in the face.

He ignored the anger bubbling up inside of him and searched along the bottom of the photograph, where somebody had scrawled the date in ink and "Wrexham, Oliver". Jimmy found his breathing increase as he held the picture shakily in one hand and the typed sheet in the other. "Blah blah blah...not important...not important..." he muttered hurriedly under his breath as he scanned the paper, searching desperately for the information he was looking for until the name caught his eye;

" _Mr Wrexham did report that upon their chance encounter that evening Mr Barrow did ply him with alcohol and lure him back to his dwellings in an attempt to seduce him."_

Jimmy frowned angrily at the sentence and read it again, remembering what Thomas had told him the week previously, “ _It’s coming down to another man’s word over mine_ ". His insides knotted in frustration and helplessness. He knew Thomas, knew he could be bad...worse than bad and devious and calculating but trying to seduce a man unwillingly was not his game; he knew that from personal experience.   _  
_

He paused for a moment. He had a plan and it was stupid- he was aware of that. But a stupid plan was better than no plan at all and so without giving himself time to talk his way out of it, he pulled out the sheet of paper with the information he needed and hurtled out of the room.

 

\-------- 

 

The streets all looked the same around the part of London Jimmy found himself in several hours later. Tall white washed town houses lined the cobbles, each with shiny glazed doors and gleaming door handles, most framed with imposing arches and stone steps, like miniature palaces lined up in a row.

Jimmy counted the numbers off; 118, 120, 122, 124... finally stopping at 126, glancing down at the address typed out on the sheet in his hand to make sure he was right.

An ominous black door confronted him with an elaborate gold doorknocker in the shape of a lion, baring his teeth. He took a deep breath and stood back, beginning to think for the first time that his plan may not be the best after all.

"Can I help you?"

Jimmy jumped and turned to find a man, older than Thomas with silvery hair that was no longer tousled but scraped back…he was taller than Jimmy had expected with broad shoulders that gave him the overall appearance that he had been roughly cut out of stone.

“I…” It was only then that Jimmy noticed the woman attached to the man’s arm, so coated in diamonds that she glimmered with every slight movement.

“I…Are you Mr Wrexham?” Jimmy stumbled over his words, distracted by the vacantly miserable face of the woman before him.

The man’s face hardened and his eyebrows furrowed.

“Why don’t you go on inside, darling” He smiled gently pushing his companion towards the house.

She looked slightly perplexed but did not argue and headed inside the house, the golden lion bouncing slightly as the door open and shut.

The moment she disappeared from view the man took a sharp sudden step towards Jimmy.

“Who are you? What the hell do you want?” He snarled, his face inches from Jimmy’s.

Jimmy took a deep breath, his throat suddenly dry; now was probably his last chance to turn and run before things took a nasty turn. But with the folded picture of Thomas poking into his ribs from his inside pocket, he couldn’t stand to walk away.

“I wanted to talk to you about Thomas Barrow- the man you were arrested with –“

Without warning the man slammed Jimmy suddenly into the archway of the house,

“Keep your voice down” he hissed, glancing down the street and at the door through which the woman had just entered.

Jimmy felt panicked for a moment, looking into the rage filled eyes of the man staring down at him, wondering what he had got himself into when a sudden realisation dawned on him.

His mouth slowly spread unconsciously into a wry smile, “That your wife then?" He asked, nodding at the door, looking quietly triumphant, "Does she not know about your dirty little secret?” Jimmy smirked, catching a glimpse of fear flickering across the man’s face.

“You shut your mouth!” He spat pushing Jimmy harder into the pillar.

But Jimmy still smiled, “You know if I were you,” Jimmy said prising the man’s hands off his jacket, “I’d be a little bit nicer to the man who’s about to blackmail me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's not a long one, hopefully things aren't moving too annoyingly slowly. Massive thank you once again to everyone who reads/comments/gives kudos/puts up with my tortoise-like speed of updating! You're the best!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert struggles with his inner demons and things take a turn for the better with Thomas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah I'm so so so so sorry this is so unbelievably late but I am so determined to finish this story and I know what I want to happen so just bare with me, it will happen! Once again, just a massive, enormous, gigantic thank you for all the wonderful comments and kudos, you guys keep me going and spur me on to keep writing!

15

 

“Papa?”

Robert was standing in a seemingly endless corridor. It was dimly lit and the dark walls seemed to be slanting menacingly towards him, threatening to entrap him within its stone fingers.

“Papa?!”

The voice sounded more agitated now but Robert couldn’t see who it belonged to.

He ran down the corridor, floating ghost-like through the darkness but appearing to go no distance at all.

“Papa! Papa!”

He was certain now that the voice belonged to his son; his little boy.

Thomas was screaming for him but Robert couldn’t find him anywhere.

He ran desperately, clawing at the air.

“Papa! Help me! Help me!”

The voiced seemed to be screaming in agony, sobbing loudly between each cry for help.

“Papa?”

The voice was suddenly quiet.

Robert looked down and saw Thomas, a small plump-faced toddler with a wash of black hair. He looked like he was trapped in the floor somehow and couldn’t get out.

Robert reached his hand out to help him out but some force pulled him back and their fingertips failed to meet.

He tried again and again and again but however hard he tried he couldn’t reach his son.

And all the while Thomas stared at him.

He was now suddenly silent, his eyes wide and red.

“You said you wouldn’t leave.” Thomas’s voice was eerily calm.

 _I haven’t left, I’m here, I’m here!_ Robert tried to shout but his voice wouldn’t work and his legs wouldn’t move.

Suddenly the floor beneath Thomas gave way and his body caved into the black hole in which he had been trapped and he was falling down, letting out a blood-curdling scream.

 

“Robert?”

Robert woke with a start, his heart still pounding and his breathing jagged.

“Are you alright?”

Robert looked round and found himself slumped over his desk with Cora standing over him in her nightgown. His cheek was red and creased from where he had fallen asleep on it against the piles of paper.

“I didn’t want to wake you but –“

“No, it’s fine” Robert interjected sharply, “I can’t be wasting time.” Shaking his head, trying to remove the dream from the forefront of his mind.

“Don’t you think you ought to come to bed darling?” Cora hovered tentatively by his shoulder.

“No.” Robert snapped before exhaling deeply, clenching his jaw to stop his bubbling undercurrent of anger from bursting to the surface further.

“No,” he repeated calmly, “no, I have to keep working on this but I can’t find this blasted report anywhere!”

He picked through the piles of paper angrily, causing a bigger mess.

Cora placed her hand gently on his shoulder but he flinched at her touch and she withdrew it quickly.

“This doesn’t stop for him when we go to bed. Every moment I’m not working on getting him out is another moment he has to spend in there.”

“I know – “

“No you don’t know!” The anger rose to the surface without warning, the hours of painstaking work and endless nightmares on a loop in his sleep finally taking their toll, “You don’t know because he is not _your_ son! You don’t know how it feels to have him taken away from you like that!”

“I _know_ how it feels to lose a child, Robert” Cora gritted her teeth, “or have you forgotten about Sybil and our baby?” She remained calm and stoic but there were tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

“How dare you!” Robert stood up suddenly, his chair clattering backwards loudly, “I love _all_ my children and I think about them every bloody day but I am not about to lose another one because of _your_ actions!” He was now shouting with such intensity that his face was growing red and his eyes looked wild.

“ _My_ actions?” Cora laughed lightly, her voice still quiet and calm, “Come on, we both know what Thomas is like, you can’t pretend he hasn’t brought this on himself.”

“Are you saying he deserves this?”

“I’m saying that Sybil never did anything to hurt anyone and now she’s gone so excuse me if I don’t shed a tear over your criminal son!”

Cora had tears sliding down her face now and Robert looked so enraged that he seemed as if he might explode at any moment.

They glared at each other, the tension rising thickly between them.

“Lord Grantham?”

A brash knock split the atmosphere.

Neither went to the door.

The knocking continued rapidly.

Eventually Robert gave in and sighing pulled the door open with such force that the young man standing on the other side looked thoroughly startled.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your Lordship but I have an urgent telegram for you.”

 

\------------------

 

Thomas didn’t know what day it was. He had stopped trying to keep track of the time that had passed soon after his arrest. He had floated hypnotically between being asleep and awake, between consciousness and unconsciousness, daydream and reality.

Apart from the few recent visits he had received there was nothing to punctuate the days or to show that life even existed at all outside of the prison walls.

So when the prison guard rattled the bars of his cell and shouted his name he had no idea whether he was dreaming, let alone what day or time it was.

“Get up.”

Thomas did what he was told, numbly dragging himself to his feet.

There was no difference to the routine; there was the usual roughness, pushing, shoving and handcuffs. He was led down the barren corridors without a word but then there was a sudden turn and they weren’t going anywhere they had been before. Thomas’s heart started thumping violently, rattling through his chest, threatening to burst through the skin.

What was happening? What new torture was awaiting him?

There was an abrupt push through a door and a bright light pierced his eyes. He couldn’t see what was going on, everything was shrouded in a white glow and his eyes that had grown so accustomed to the gloomy darkness of the cells, took longer than normal to adjust.

“Thomas?”

The voice was familiar but in the hazy glow of the sunlight that pooled around its speaker, his face was undetectable.

He raised his still handcuffed hands to his eyes to shield his face. Only then did he realise that he was by what looked like the reception desk to the prison; there were officers he didn’t recognise writing on pieces of paper, people talking quietly to each other, the faint sound of typewriters pinging happily away and there, looking angelic in the sun’s glow was Robert.

 

And then suddenly after months of time moving in slow motion, it was like a switch had been flipped and things happened at such speed that Thomas didn’t have time to register what was happening. Handcuffs were unlocked, pushing, signing documents, clothes thrust into arms and before he had time to prepare himself, he was thrust onto the street.

 

He felt like he was choking on the immense amount of air surrounding him, like he couldn’t breathe for all the space. The warmth of the spring morning sun wrapped itself around his body and he felt like he could cry from that mild warmth that he couldn’t remember feeling in such a long time. The light, though dim, was practically blinding but he had never felt more grateful for the stinging pain in his eyes.

 

In the light of day Thomas’s change of appearance was more apparent than ever; his clothes hung off him like they were still hanging on a coat hanger, waiting to be worn, his skin was so pale that the sun glared off it and each bruise, cut and scar seemed highlighted and underlined. Robert stood by the motorcar that would take them to the hotel and watched Thomas cautiously taking in his surroundings. In that moment he could see his little boy again, looking scared at the big world in front of him, taking his first steps all over again.

 

“Thomas? Shall we get you back?”

Thomas jumped slightly and nodded, still looking disorientated and deep in thought.

“We’re staying at a hotel not too far from here” Robert started to ramble awkwardly once they were both sitting in the back of the vehicle, “I’ll get you a room and we can get you sorted out a bit and then in a few days we can all go home to Downton. Of course the girls will be thrilled to see you and then of course there’s – “

“I’m not going back to Downton” Thomas interrupted so quietly that he could barely be heard over the sound of the engine.

“Pardon?” Robert asked, not even sure if Thomas had spoken.

“I’m not going back to Downton”

“I understand it will be difficult to adapt to life upstairs but Tom managed it and I’m sure you can too” Robert smiled, trying to remain upbeat.

“Nothing’s changed for me” Thomas looked down at his bitten fingers, all the fight had disappeared from his voice “I can’t go back there, I can’t live under the same roof as you and _your_ family.”

“But – “

“No!” Thomas interrupted, “No. I won’t tell anyone about what’s happened, ok? But I need something in return.”

Robert frowned back at Thomas, looking hurt and concerned, “Money?”

“Just enough so I can start again on my own somewhere and then you’ll never have to hear from me again.”

“Thomas please” Robert gently put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder, “Do you not think you should think about this? I know things have been difficult but I think if you were with family – “

“Family?!” Thomas spat, shrugging Robert’s hand off his shoulder, “You’re not my family! You’re just a man who got a woman pregnant and then stopped caring! That doesn’t give you any right to call yourself family!”

Robert said nothing and dropped his hands back into his lap with a pained expression, looking embarrassed.

The car pulled to a stop outside of the hotel and Robert motioned to the driver to give them a minute.

Thomas turned his face to look back out of the window, fiercely blinking away the tears that were forming at his eyes.

“I know you’re hurt – “ Robert implored, turning to face Thomas.

“Are you going to give me the money or not? Because I’m leaving either way!” Thomas shouted, his voice cracking involuntarily.

“I-I’ll have to move a few things around…I don’t have that sort of money lying around…” Robert said sheepishly

“Ok, you do that.” Thomas snapped, not glancing back at Robert as he stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's not a particularly long one! I promise to not wait so long before I update next time! Thank you for baring with me! All comments/kudos are massively appreciated!


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